


The Commander's Elf

by Smutnug



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dark Cullen, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Lyrium Addiction, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Redemption, Sexual Coercion, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-01-30 23:54:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12664038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smutnug/pseuds/Smutnug
Summary: Lilla is forced by circumstances to take a job at the Kirkwall Gallows, and things take a dark turn when Knight-Captain Cullen discovers her secret.(Featuring a very bad Cullen PLEASE OBSERVE THE TAGS)





	1. Kirkwall part I

“Let the new girl do the Knight-Captain’s rooms.”

“The elf?”

They mean her. Of course they mean her. Lilla carries on scrubbing the floor, her skirts tucked up into her apron.

“She's a good enough worker.”

“Are you sure? Knight-Captain’s very particular.”

“I'm not doing it. He makes my skin crawl.”

 

“I don't think it's a good idea.”

“It's work, Lilla. Your sister's medicine costs money. Your food costs money, and this job includes that and board.” Her aunt’s face is pinched and haggard, the years of hard work and poor nutrition having taken their toll.

“It's the Gallows.”

“Then don't do any magic.” The woman pauses in plucking feathers to wipe a dull strand of hair back with her wrist. “Regular meals, your own bed and money home - tell me you'll get that in the alienage.”

Lilla’s gut twists at the thought. “There must be another way -”

“Then find it. Until then, take what work you can get. We can't afford to keep you any longer - besides, stay here and keep on healing folks for coppers and dead pigeons and you'll wind up in the same place. Without the pay.”

 

The Knight-Captain’s door is open. He must be out, she thinks, and doesn't knock before entering with her water bucket and cleaning supplies.

The office hardly needs cleaning. It's unsettlingly tidy, and a glance through to the quarters beyond shows the same. Still, she's here to do a job so she dampens a cloth and sets to work.

“Don't touch those.” She'd been prepared to shift a stack of vellum correspondence to wipe down an already immaculate corner of the desk, but the stern order has her freezing as if she'd been caught thieving.

“I'm sorry, Ser.” From the corner of her eye she sees him leaning in the doorway - the rooms weren't so empty after all, it seems.

“Look at me.” There's something low and dangerous in that voice, something that screams to her run, run. Instead she turns slowly, lifting her eyes to meet his.

His rumpled appearance is at odds with the meticulous order of his office and quarters, as if he's just been roused from sleep. There's an unruliness to his blond curls and his linen shirt is wrinkled and untucked. But it's his eyes that hold her: golden-brown and narrowed on her with a predatory focus.

“New.”

“Yes, Ser.”

She tries to picture herself through his eyes. Skinny and sallow, red hair pinned beneath a cloth cap and body draped in a sexless grey dress - certainly nothing to justify the calculating hunger in his gaze.

“What's your name?”

“Lilla, Ser.”

“Knight-Captain Cullen. But you gathered that.”

“I was cleaning the desk, Ser, I didn't mean -”

“Never mind that.” He saunters past her to close his office door and her hands go clammy. “Take care of the grate there. Then I'll need my sheets changed and my shaving water replaced.” When he steps closer she can smell him, sweat and earth and a sharp, not-quite-citrus scent that sings to the mana inside her. She tries not to flinch as he tucks a stray hair inside her cap. “I knew an elf with hair like yours once.”

His voice has taken on a dreamy quality - she doesn't know how to respond so she stands mutely until he finally drops his hand. When he speaks again he's brusque and businesslike. “Get to work. I'll be in the next room.”

She can hear him as she scrapes out the ashes: the whisper of fabric, the scrubbing of damp skin, the rasp of a razor over stubble. When the grate is cleaned she stands in the centre of his office, hesitant.

“You've finished in there?” he calls with a hint of irritation. “Come in.”

Mercifully he's finished putting on a fresh pair of pants but she's treated to the sight of his back, broad and muscled and criss-crossed with pale scars.

“When you've finished staring, you can strip the bed.” Face aflame, she bends to her task. Despite the relative chill of the Kirkwall winter there are no blankets and the sheets are tangled and damp with perspiration. Glancing at him, he doesn't look fevered - his hair is damp from washing but there's a ruthless precision to his movements as he buckles on each piece of his armour in turn.

“You know where to take those?”

“Yes, Ser.”

“Good. Come straight back.”

Any hope that he might leave her to her work dies. “Yes, Ser.” She gathers up the bedding under one arm and hoists her bucket with the other, shuffling off in the direction of the laundry.

When she returns with clean sheets he stands by and directs her how to fold the corners in to his liking. It's as she's reaching to fluff the final pillow that she feels something in the air change.

It's like the breath has been sucked out of her lungs. But wait, that's not right - she's still breathing, but there's an absence, a missing sense that makes her lose her bearings. Her mana.

She's been Silenced.

There's a moment’s confused hesitation as she looks to Cullen, and the cool amusement in his eyes tells her everything she needs to know. Then she's dashing headlong for the study door. Despite his mail, he's got a longer stride and the advantage of surprise and she doesn't make it five steps before she's bent over his desk, one arm twisted cruelly behind her back.

“I could smell it on you,” he hisses in her ear. “Thought you could fool me, did you? I've met your type before, you knife-eared little mage whore.”

“Please. Please.” There's no use struggling, he's bigger and stronger in every way, pressing up as close as he can against her back.

“Please, please,” he mocks her. “You think I'll let you walk out of here because you begged? Or is it something else you have in mind?”

There's movement at her back and then she feels a hand inside her skirts, wandering up the back of her thighs. She's frozen now. As he strokes rough fingers up and down the bare skin above her stockings, she can hardly breathe let alone plead.

“Is this what you want? Me to fuck you in return for leniency?” His fingers squeeze her thigh. “I won't deny the thought has its appeal. But then what? A few hours, a night's pleasure and then I set you free on the world? A mage, walking out of the Gallows? No.”

A hot tear runs over the bridge of her nose, reminds her that the cool wood of the desk is pressed against her cheek, her toes still touch the ground. All of this is horribly, painfully real.

“If I were a lesser man,” he muses, “I might fuck you and then turn you over to the Circle anyway. But that hardly seems right, does it? A templar screwing one of his charges. There are rules about that.”

To her panicked mind, his words make no sense. Is he saying he won't turn her in? Or that he won't…won't…

As if she weighs less than nothing, the Knight-Captain turns her and lifts her onto the desk. Her cap is askew and he pulls it off, lets her hair fall messily about her shoulders.

“Yes.” Taking her by the chin he tilts her face this way and that. “You'll do very well. Can you follow instructions, little mageling?” Lilla looks at him dumbly. His hand fists in her hair, dragging her head back painfully. “I asked you a question, whore.”

“Yes,” she gasps.

“We'll see.” Releasing her hair, he sets about righting her cap as he talks matter-of-factly. “You will bring me my dinner tonight. Here, at the eighth bell.” The last of her hair is tucked away and he nods in satisfaction. “You'll wear no underthings.”

She stares. It's impossible what he's asking, obscene.

“Tell me you understand.”

“I understand. Ser.”

“Good.” He sets her on her feet, catching her when she sways. Wipes a tear from her cheek and licks the salt from his thumb with a half-smile. “Now, I have work to do.” Mutely, she starts for the door only to be interrupted by his steely voice. “Are you forgetting something?”

Dinner. The eighth bell. No underthings. He shakes his head. “The shaving water.”

Of course. When she re-emerges with the heavy basin he's seated behind the desk, a quill in his hand.

“Lilla.” She pauses, dismayed that he remembers her name. “Don't try to run. It would be a mistake.”

“No, Ser.”

 

Exactly what does he mean by underthings? When she catches a moment to herself she steals into the cell she shares with five other servant girls. Smallclothes, she supposes are obvious. Slight as she is, she mostly wears a breastband to protect her skin from the scratchy fabric of her dress. But it's more important to follow his directions to the letter than to avoid a little scratching, she reasons as she wriggles out of it. After a moment’s hesitation she adds her woollen stockings to the small pile.

“The Knight-Captain’s dinner, you say?” The cook looks her up and down. “It's been a while. Half thought he might be done with that.” She calls to a girl with lank brown hair and a prominent nose. “New girl’s taking dinner to the Knight-Captain. Eighth bell. Make sure she ain't late.”

“Cullen, eh? Half your luck.” The girl shows her a mouth full of small, crooked teeth. “Wish he wanted me to take him his dinner.”

“You wouldn't say that if -” Cook catches herself. “Cut these carrots while you wait, girl. Then make sure your hands are clean. Knight-Captain likes clean.”

At the eighth bell she knocks, pushing open the door at the Knight-Captain’s curt command. He rises as she enters, not from chivalry but to lock the door behind her. But he scratches the back of his neck in embarrassment as he resumes his seat.

“I wanted to apologise,” he says. “For what I called you earlier.”

Lilla shifts on her feet, sensing a trap. “Thank you, Ser.”

“I'm not like that. About elves.”

“Oh.”

Cullen's eyes narrow and she curses herself for speaking. “Oh?”

“I thought you meant…” Staring steadfastly at the wood grain of the desk, she bites her lip.

“You thought I was apologising for calling you a whore.” Amused, he uncovers the dish she placed before him. He eats in small, neat bites, chewing each mouthful thoroughly before swallowing.

“May…” She clears her throat. “May I leave, Ser?”

“Don't be stupid. Have you eaten?”

“The servants eat after the ninth bell.”

Lightning-fast he catches her wrist. “You're thin,” he says accusingly. “Do they feed you enough?”

“Very well, Ser,” she replies, disconcerted by the way he rubs the inside of her wrist with his calloused thumb. “I haven't been here long, that's all.”

“Alienage.” It's not a question, and he doesn't expect an answer. He finishes the rest of his meal, wiping the plate clean with a piece of bread. “How old are you, Lilla?”

“Eighteen, Ser.” Shocked at her own boldness, she asks, “How old are you?”

Cullen laughs in surprise. “Six-and-twenty.”

It seems to her he should be younger, even if he only has eight years on her own age. In the alienage a man of six-and-twenty was well on his way to middle age, bowed with hard work and poverty. But humans eat better, she reasons, and live apart from the miasma of disease and suffering that permeates her home. A younger man would not have reached the rank of Knight-Captain.

“Come here.” He pushes his chair back.

Feet leaden, she edges around the desk toward him.

“Take off your shoes.”

“My shoes?”

“Are you an idiot?” Instantly his good humour vanishes. “Take off your shoes.”

Quickly she toes off her leather slippers, standing barefoot on the tiles before him.

“Closer,” he orders, spreading his knees to accommodate her. “Now, let's get a look at you. ” He tugs the cap from her head and balls it in his fist, his heavy-lidded eyes sweeping her body. “Pull your skirts up.”

She takes half a step back before he seizes her by the waist. “But Ser, I -”

“You said you could follow instructions,” he growls. “Don't tell me I was mistaken about you.”

“What's going to happen to me?” She wants to be brave, wants to scream and scratch his face, spit on him and tell him just to take her to the Circle and stop playing his sick games. But her voice is shaking and she doesn't know what she fears more, the Knight-Captain or his men who drag mages away, hunt them and hurt them and brand them.

He can sense her fear, and he likes it. “Lift your skirts,” he says, “and you'll find out.”

Her hands are almost shaking too much to hold on, but she inches the scratchy grey fabric up her bare legs.

“Higher,” he orders. He's sitting far back in the chair, a finger tracing his lips, and when her skirts reach her waist he smiles in satisfaction. “There it is, your pretty cunt. Such a sweet, pink, pretty little cunt.” The tip of his tongue darts out to moisten his lips. “She let me look at hers, once. When I caught her out after curfew. Lifted her robes and showed me, and I said I wouldn't tell Greagoir.”

Lilla can't think who he's talking about, then she remembers. An elf, with hair like yours.

Cullen is still lost in his memories. “I wondered if she shaved it. I didn't know then that all elves are like that. She said next time I could kiss it, if I wanted…”

His eyes flicker to hers. There's no query there, no silent request for permission. She knows with certainty, when he leans forward, that he's going to kiss her there. If she says no, will he stop? But she can't, she's frozen with shame and fear.

It's not like any kiss she knows, the slow sweep of his tongue. It's wet, and warm, and tingles in a way that makes her wonder if maybe he was right, maybe she is a whore. He's licking, and teasing, and tasting, and his low moans of appreciation make her face burn. It's worse when he parts her with his thumbs and moves his attentions upwards, and she's horrified at the sound she makes, a piteous whine more of desire than despair.

It's wrong, everything is wrong and she never should have come here.

Cullen sits back again. “Look at me,” he demands, and she forces herself to meet those hungry amber eyes. He searches her face and gives a nod of satisfaction.

“You liked that,” he says and there's no point arguing, even if she could speak without crying. “Take off your dress.”

The fire is banked high, but she still shivers when she stands before him naked. His bare fingers easily span her ribs.

“We'll fix this,” he murmurs, before his hands fall to his lap and he looks up at her expectantly. “Touch yourself.”

She finds her voice. “Touch myself?”

“Must you parrot everything I say?” he snaps. “Touch yourself. Your cunt.”

Lilla flinches as much at his coarse words as his tone. “I can't.”

A change comes over his face, a decidedly unpleasant smile quirking his lips upward. “You've never done this before? Not even on your own, in bed at night?”

She shakes her head. “I share a bed with my sister.” Her little sister Mari, who needs potions to stop the shaking sickness, to treat the murmurs of her heart that turn her lips and fingers blue. She's failed - an apprentice has no money to send home for potions and Mari will certainly die without them. Not right away but in a month, six months. The tears spill freely down her face.

“Come now,” Cullen says gently. “Try for me. Try, and I'll make sure you're taken care of.”

Hesitantly she reaches between her legs and rests her hand over her sex. She has no idea what he wants, but at least for the moment she's covered. He shakes his head in disappointment, but he sounds anything but disappointed when he says, “I see there's much I'll have to teach you.”

Drawing her into his lap, he strokes her hair as if she's a frightened child. “Don't cry, little one. I'll show you.” She's stiff as he positions her with her back to his plated chest, one arm wrapped firmly around her waist. Then he takes her hand and guides it between her thighs.

“Start here,” he murmurs, pressing her fingers to her entrance and circling gently. “You'll learn what you like. I'll teach you. But start where it's wet.” And it is, when her fingertips dip between her folds, too slick and smooth to have come from his mouth alone. “That's you, sweetling, all wet for me. You hungry little whore.”

She whimpers when he drags her hand up to the place that made her legs tremble earlier - there's a bump of flesh there and when her slick fingers nudge it it feels good, horribly good, quickly becoming too much. Cullen laughs when she tries to squirm away.

“Too soon. She's a shy little pearl, yours…we need to tease her out.” Their fingers circle and she feels a heat spreading at her core. “The things I'm going to show you…” The rhythm changes, her fingers moving faster and surer against her and then it hits her hard, a flood of sensation that makes her tremble and cry out. “That's my girl,” he murmurs as his hand slips away from hers. “I knew you had it in you.”

It's something in her, then. Something sinful and wrong that he sensed as surely as her magic. She's limp in his arms, red-faced and weeping.

“Shh, now. Enough of that. I've found you now, I'm going to look after you.” Gentle lips press to her neck, then the shell of her ear, a huff of warm laughter escaping when she moans. “Didn't know about that, did you sweetling? I'll wager I could make you come again right now just sucking on your ear. But you have places to be.” He gives her a little nudge and she scrambles without dignity from his lap. “Wash your hands, fix your hair, put your dress and shoes back on and report to me.”

Report, he says, like she's one of his soldiers. What is she now? Even in the alienage under the crushing thumb of poverty, she's never felt so powerless.

“You belong to me now,” he says when she stands once more before his desk. “You work only for me. The staff will be informed and your things, such as they are, brought here. You'll have a cot in my quarters and you'll be available to me whenever I need you. Understood?”

She doesn't understand, not remotely, but she nods mutely.

“You are to go nowhere without my permission. You will not leave the Gallows except in my company. You will take your meals with me and when you are not engaged in a task that I have set you, you will remain in my quarters. Have you any questions?”

“I…” She hates how her voice quavers. “You won't tell anyone what I am?”

His lip curls. “Oh, I think people will know what you are. As to your magic, no. I won't tell if you don't give me reason.”

The next question sticks in her throat, but she has to know. For Mari. “Will I still be paid, Ser?”

Cullen barks with laughter. “What kind of whore would you be if I didn't pay you? Yes, Lilla. You'll find me more than generous in that regard.” He flicks his wrist towards the door. “Now go. I expect you back here in the morning.”


	2. Kirkwall part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: forced penetration

The cook makes her a tray with two breakfasts on it. Little escapes the woman's shrewd eyes; she can see the dark circles under Lilla’s eyes, the pallor of her face.

“Don't fret, girl,” she says gruffly. “It won't last forever. He won't beat you or leave you with a babe in your belly, and you'll take a decent package with you when you go. Enough to get a husband maybe - there's plenty out there who don't mind a girl’s been broken in some. If not, there's always the Rose.”

“The Rose?”

Cook shakes her head sadly. “Never mind.”

There were other girls, Lilla thinks as she makes her way to Cullen's rooms. They left. The thought gives her some comfort until she examines it properly - they left. They weren't mages.

They share their breakfast in silence, Cullen watching her with a little smirk. “Have mine, too,” he says when she's eaten the last of the eggs off her plate. “No arguments - I won't have you walking around looking like a scarecrow.”

His chair scrapes back and he rises, returning with a vial of blue liquid. It glows faintly, seems to whisper on a register she feels rather than hears.

“You sense it too, don't you?” He unstops the vial and the acid tang reaches her, the scent she smelled on his skin. “Lyrium.”

“What is it?”

“My leash.” He smiles bitterly. “My one true love.” The lyrium flows like liquid metal and he tips his head back, his throat convulsing as he swallows it down.

“But…what does it do?” she asks nervously.

“It makes me fearless.” And she watches his demeanour change: a peace spreads over his features and there's a new light in his eyes. “I'll be out most of the day. Clean the same as yesterday. You can do the floors as well, and dust behind the shelves for cobwebs. There's a dress on the bed.” He looks her over critically. “It will be large on you - I'll have you fitted for new clothes, but it will do for now. I want you to draw a bath and get clean, and I expect you to be wearing your new dress when I return. Just the dress.”

“I understand, Ser.”

“Don't call me Ser,” he snaps, then more gently, “When we're alone, you may call me Cullen.”

It seems improper, but so was his tongue between her legs. She nods. Cullen reaches and trails the back of his knuckles along her cheekbone.

“I said I would take care of you, and I will. You'll be safe with me.”

She's not sure they have the same idea of what safety is.

 

The dress is loose on her, but not ridiculously so - it might have belonged to an elf before, or a slight human. The pale green fabric is soft against her bare skin.

What time did he say he'd be back? He didn't. The sun is dipping below the horizon and she wonders if she's meant to fetch his dinner - their dinner - at the eighth bell.

“You lit the fire.”

Cullen leans heavily against the doorframe. His shoulders are stooped with weariness, his uniform spattered with blood and ichor.

“Yes, Ser,” she says reflexively. “Cullen.”

The Knight-Captain smiles at his name, but his eyes remain stern. “Don't use magic in here. I shouldn't have to tell you.”

“I didn't -”

“And don't lie to me.” In a few strides he towers over her. “Don't ever think of lying to me.”

“I'm sorry. I couldn't get the flint to work.”

“Useless,” he mutters. “I'll show you. Until then I'd rather you didn't light it at all.” He rubs the bridge of his nose in irritation, turning to sit heavily in his chair. “Help me out of this armour, will you?”

As she works at the many buckles he notices the dress. “Too big,” he confirms, “but I like the colour on you.”

“Thank you.”

“We lost a man today,” he says in a conversational tone. “To abominations summoned by a blood mage.”

“I'm sorry.”

“So you see why we must be vigilant. Why we must protect mages from themselves.”

“I do,” she answers, and sensing he expects more, “Thank you, for the work you do.”

Sighing, he motions to a cupboard by the bedroom door. “Fetch me wine. It's been a hard day.” As she scrambles to her feet, he adds: “Two glasses.”

The first cup is drained in seconds; the other he pushes towards her. “Drink,” he insists. “To your new position.”

She grimaces a little at the tart flavour, and he laughs at her.

“You'll get used to it. Draw me a bath, will you? And fetch food from the kitchen. And more wine.”

He's beautiful, she thinks as he strips down without shame in front of her. Tall and broad, skin scattered with old scars and fine, golden hairs. It's impossible not to stare with a mixture of admiration and fear at the finely sculpted form of his body, the rippling shoulders and strong thighs and the taut, firm buttocks. She averts her eyes when he turns in her direction and steps into the copper tub, with a weary sigh as he sinks beneath the water.

“Take those to the laundry on your way,” he orders, gesturing to his discarded clothing. “There's a basket there you can leave them in - they'll get the stains out tomorrow.”

The dinner cools as he has her scrub his back until the skin is an angry pink. She soaps his hair and he leans into her touch.

“You're good to me,” he slurs and she notices the first bottle of wine is all but empty. “You'll keep being good to me, won't you, Lilla?”

“Of course, S-” She catches herself in time. “I will.”

“Good girl.” He reaches up and catches her soapy hand in his. “Good girl.”

During dinner, throughout which he watches her eat with templar-like vigilance, he continues drinking.

“Have more,” he insists, and when she only sips, “More,” until her head is spinning.

“I shouldn't.”

“But you should. It will help.”

“Help?”

“There you go again,” he grumbles. “Just do as I say.”

Obediently she drains her glass, although there's a floating numbness spreading through her body. When he's watched her clear the last morsel of food from her plate he pushes back his chair.

“Come here.”

He draws her down onto his lap and this time there's no heavy mail between them, just a thin linen shirt and drawstring sleeping pants and the warm, muscled bulk of him around her. His hair is still damp and he smells like the soap he uses, moss and elderflower, and like red wine.

“Feel what you do to me,” he murmurs in her ear, manoeuvring her hand to his crotch. She can feel his length clearly, thick and hard under her fingers. “You make me this way. You and your big wide eyes and your red hair and your wet, pink little cunt.”

He nuzzles into the hollow of her neck, one of his hands, so much bigger than her own, climbing beneath her skirts. A broad finger strokes up and down the length of her slit, making her treacherous body shiver. “You want to make me happy, don't you?”

“Yes,” she whispers.

“I can give you everything you need. I can make you feel so good, Lilla.”

She wishes it didn't feel good, when he plays with her folds and slides two fingers around her bud. She wishes she didn't throb for the loss of him when he pushes her away, searching in a drawer for a little stoppered bottle.

“Drink this.”

It's sharp and acrid on her tongue and she recognises the scent of witherstalk. To stop conception. Cold fear settles in the pit of her belly and she looks up at him, a silent plea he either doesn't see or chooses to ignore. He's briskly efficient again as he unlaces her dress and orders her onto his bed, shedding his own clothing in short order.

“Look at me,” he demands when she would turn her face to the wall. His cock is so dark compared to the surrounding skin, purple-red and angry-looking. “You see why I can't wait for you any longer. It hurts me not to be inside you.” Crawling over her, he presses the length of his body against hers, his cock trapped between her thighs. “I need you,” he groans. His shaft slides wetly along her folds when he rocks his hips. "Your little virgin cunt. I'm aching for you."

“Please.” The tears are building behind her eyes - she's going to displease him, she's not ready, not sure she'll ever be ready for this.

Perhaps deliberately, he mistakes her meaning, lining himself up with her entrance and pushing just the swollen tip of his cock inside her. And it hurts, sharp as a knife, so much worse than she could have imagined.

Cullen frowns at her choked sob. “Maker, you're tight.” He reaches between their bodies to rub her clit with his fingers and she can sense his frustration growing. “Relax,” he says through gritted teeth. “It will be easier on you if you just relax.”

“I can't,” she whimpers. It hurts so much already, doesn't he know she'd make it stop if she knew how?

He shakes his head; she's disappointed him again. “I tried to make it nice for you,” he mutters, pushing her rigid knees wide.

“Please,” she begs. “Cullen.”

At the sound of his name, the wild lust in his eyes clears and for a moment he sees her. “It will be better next time,” he says softly, pushing the hair back from her face. “I swear it.” Then he thrusts into her and she screams.

 

When it's over she curls on her side, only able to whimper in protest when he insists on cleaning the blood and mess from her legs and her bruised sex.

“It's normal for the first time,” he insists, avoiding her red-rimmed eyes. “You'll be fine.”

She's lifted and carried to her own cot with surprising gentleness, and he tucks the clean sheets around her before she hears him stumble back to bed.

At some point in the night she can hear him thrashing and moaning in the throes of a nightmare. When Mari was younger she would cry out in the night sometimes, and Lilla would wake her and soothe her until the fears passed. Tonight she pulls her own blankets tighter, feeling a fresh trickle of his seed down her thigh. Let the dreams plague him, let them drive him mad; she just wants to let her abused body rest.

 

She rises before he does. The fire is cold in the grate and she wraps herself in a blanket, ignoring the sound of him stirring behind her as she stubbornly tries to coax a flame from the recalcitrant tinder.

“Let me.” She starts as Cullen kneels beside her. He takes the flint and firesteel from her hands, striking a shower of sparks and blowing them gently into flames.

He looks terrible. His eyes are bleary, his shirt stuck to his chest with sweat.

“I owe you an apology,” he says quietly. “I don't often drink. It was a hard day and I was…impatient with you. I was rougher than I should have been, and for that I am sorry.”

His words dont erase her shame when she carries his soiled sheets to the laundry, scrubbing away her maiden's blood under the pitying glances of the other servants. They've seen this play out before. How many times?

When she returns he's seated at the table in his quarters, fingers wrapped around a vial of lyrium. “You're not eating,” he observes as she stares at her plate.

“I'm not hungry.”

“It doesn't matter. You must eat.”

“I can't.”

His eyes flash. “You can and you will. Or I'll feed you myself - is that what you want?”

“No,” she murmurs. She turns her attention to eating, swallowing past the lump in her throat. When she looks up again the lyrium is gone and a pot of greenish unguent sits on the table.

“Salve,” he says shortly. “It will help you heal.”

“Thank you.”

“I will show you how to clean my armour, then you will draw yourself a bath. I expect you to bathe twice daily.” From somewhere he produces another dress, this time of soft pale blue wool. “Like your eyes.”

He leaves for a time after supervising her bath, ensuring she cleans herself to his exacting standards, and she breathes a sigh of relief when he's gone. His presence takes up so much space, requires the energy to think about her every action and expression.

She's wary of touching anything between her legs but the salve is soothing and cooling - she's forbidden healing magic, she remembers with a pang. If only a salve could ease the memory of feeling as if she were being torn in half, trapped and spread below him as he thrust and grunted and told her, over and over, how good she felt, how tight, how sweet.

“I've organised for your pay to be transferred to me,” he says when he returns. “You may ask me for such money as you need to buy things. The rest I will keep safe for you.”

“But I need that money!” she blurts unwisely.

His face darkens with anger. “What for, you ungrateful slut? To bribe your way out of here? To book passage from Kirkwall? Is this the thanks I can expect for looking after your interests?” He slams a gauntleted hand on the table and she flinches.

“My sister,” she stammers. “She's ill, she needs potions. She'll die without them.”

“Is this the truth?” Cullen advances on her slowly. “Because if you're lying to me…”

“It's the truth. Her name is Mari. She lives with my aunt in the alienage.”

“Mari.” Without another word he turns on his heel and marches from the room. Lilla buries her face in her arms and shakes. It's all for nothing, the fear and brutality and loss of freedom. He's taken everything from her, even the ability to help her sister.

It's many hours later when he returns. “Your sister will be taken care of,” he announces.

Lilla gapes at him. “What do you mean?”

“Better healers. Better food. Potions when she needs them. I've had them moved - still in the alienage but there's more light and air, less damp.”

She's too shocked even to thank him. “What did you tell them?”

Cullen laughs unkindly. “Tell them? Why, that you're fucking the Knight-Captain in exchange for money, of course. What else would I tell them?”

He's teasing, she realises after a moment. She finally recalls her manners, falling to her knees to kiss his hand. “Thank you,” she whispers. “Andraste bless you.”

“Little one,” he murmurs, pleased with her show of gratitude. “I told you I would take care of you, did I not?”

“You did.”

“Come and sit with me.” By which she already knows he means to drape herself in his lap while his hands wander inside her dress. He reads through reports at his desk while he toys idly with her breasts, and she allows herself to relax into his touch. It's not the worst feeling, the drag of calloused hands against her sensitive nipples.

 _How easily bought you are,_ she thinks drowsily. _What wouldn't you let him do for the right price?_

Her first kiss, from what she knows of these things, shouldn’t have come with a hand between her legs. He fondles the tip of her ear and takes advantage of her gasp to push his tongue into her mouth, warm and sinuous. It was almost easier when he pinned her down and forced her, at least she didn’t feel confused, and desirous, and somehow complicit.

“Let me try again,” he breathes against her mouth. “I can do better. Let me show you.” A thick finger pushes at her entrance, and after a moment’s resistance it’s inside her. “See how easy it is, when you let me? I don’t want to hurt you.”

She can’t think of anything to say, so she kisses him again.

“There you are.” His finger slides in and out, and the scratch of his thumbnail on her ear sends a flood of wetness between her legs. “I knew you wanted it. I knew from the moment I saw you.”

She’s lightheaded by the time he sweeps his papers aside and lays her on the desk. With her skirts around her waist he parts her legs, looking at her cunt like an animal about to pounce on its prey.

“You’re dripping for me.” The sweep of his tongue makes her arch and cry, two of his fingers stretching and filling her. “My sweet little whore.” He licks her until she can't think straight, pumps his fingers until they're gliding freely inside her slick channel.  

When he stops his fingers are glistening with her arousal. He holds her eyes as he licks them clean. "Maker, the taste of you..." Impatient now, he fumbles at his waist until his cock springs free and she makes a tiny noise of dismay. “Shh,” he says. “There’s no need to cry.”

This time he spreads her folds with one hand as he rocks into her inch by inch. It aches, but not the burning, tearing pain of before.

“Does it feel good?” he pants, and she nods, relieved and horrified to find that it does. Like the touch of his tongue and fingers but deeper, spreading low in her belly. He lifts her thighs and seats himself fully and her reedy cry isn’t one of pain. “There,” he says, starting to thrust slowly into her. “See how well you fit me? Your cunt was made for me, Lilla. The Maker sent you to me.”

She doesn’t want it to be true. But the decisions the Maker has made for her haven’t always been the ones she would have chosen - perhaps never. Tension is coiling within her, building slowly, and she’s moaning and crying like the whore he says she is, her voice climbing higher and higher. _Oh Maker, hear my cry_ she prays, but that's not right, if the Maker heard the sounds she's making now he would surely turn away in disgust. Then words and thought are lost to her as she shatters beneath him.

“Yes,” he grunts. “That’s the way.” Bracing a fist on the desk he starts to fuck her harder, his fingers circling her clit faster and faster, driving her again towards the edge. “Such a good little whore, so tight, _Maker,_ I’m going to come inside you -”

She feels it this time, in the absence of that overwhelming pain - the jerk of his cock inside her, the clench and flutter of her cunt, the flood of slick warmth between her legs.

“Mine,” he gasps, “you’re mine,” and she has no choice but to accept that it’s true.


	3. Kirkwall part III

He takes her again that night, when she's still damp and flushed from her bath. When she tries to rise to move to her cot, she's held in place by a strong arm around her waist.

“Stay,” he murmurs. “I want you here with me.”

Lying pressed against his chest, her head tucked beneath his chin and his bare legs tangled with hers, she wonders if she could escape. Or if life would be so unbearable as a Circle mage. But then Mari would lose everything, she reminds herself. He has her trapped now even more surely than before.

 _And you should be grateful for his help,_ she thinks, _if nothing else. Besides, what did you have before that was so wonderful?_

_Freedom. Control. I just didn't know it at the time._

What an innocent fool she'd been.

“Cullen…” She falters.

“What is it?”

“Do you believe we're all the Maker's children? Even mages?”

“In a way.” He considers her question. “I believe it's dangerous to argue that we are created equal. It leads people to overlook the dangers that mages pose. I have seen…” This time it's he who falls silent.

“What have you seen?”

“Never mind that. Suffice it to say, I have seen the results of leniency. Of what some would call mercy. And there is nothing at all merciful about it.”

“You think, then…” She hesitates, knowing that she's on dangerous ground. She's seen the templars at work in the alienage, has heard the gossip amongst the servants. “The templars never go too far?”

“Some of them do, undoubtedly. Men in power will find a way to abuse it.”

“And it's not your job to stop them?”

“If I believe a templar is bringing the order into disrepute, yes, I will see him stopped. But I cannot believe every wild tale of abuse that crosses my desk.”

“You ignore them, then?”

“Some suffering is necessary to maintain order. I cannot afford to be an idealist, not in this city.”

Suffering. She thinks of the Tranquil, going about their tasks with the mindless focus of ants. “Would you rather see all mages Tranquil?”

“It would be simpler, certainly. Safer. But the Tranquil know neither guilt, nor fear. The Tranquil cannot repent their sins.” He shifts, drawing her closer. “You'll come with me to the Chantry tomorrow.”

“Is that proper?”

“We don't have to sit together. I can't let you neglect your spiritual education, and you can hardly attend the Chantry here with the mages.”

“You knew I was a mage,” she says. “What if somebody else does?”

He laughs. “In truth, it was a guess. More of a hope.”

“Why would you hope I was a mage?” she asks, shocked.

“So I could keep you,” he answers matter-of-factly. “So I could own you, and you could never leave. And here you are.”

 

The nightmare returns late in the night, but this time when he wakes he finds her there within his reach. He's desperate, frantic, his fingers digging into her hips as he fucks her hard and fast as if to prove to himself she's real. When it's over he falls asleep as quickly, and she's left awake and staring at the dark ceiling.

 

There's a Chantry in the alienage but it seems like a privy compared to the Grand Chantry in Hightown. The entire alienage could fit within its high walls. Lilla is distracted during the sermon, staring up at the gilded tapestries and the tall, impassive figure of Andraste. She can see Cullen, seated near the front by right of rank, his back straight and plate and mail gleaming. She's felt how heavy it is - doesn't it wear him down, day after day carrying that weight around?

After the service he meets her at the top of the stairs, taking her by the elbow. “We have one more stop this morning.” He leads her to a door in a small side street - above it hangs a sign with a picture of a needle and thread, and it's opened by a dour-faced woman who greets the Knight-Captain with deference.

“Let's have a look at you, then.” Briskly she takes Lilla’s measurements, turning and moving her like a doll before scrawling each figure in a tiny notebook.

“Leave some room to grow,” Cullen tells her and she nods.

“Skinny.” When she's done she closes her book with a snap. “Appreciate your business, Knight-Captain.”

“You’ll receive payment as usual.”

Lilla thinks of the dresses he’s had her wear, the pale green and the soft blue, and she feels sick.

 

She does start to fill out in the next weeks. She can no longer see the ribs below her collarbone and her face loses its pinched, gaunt look. Cullen wraps his hands appreciatively around her waist as he sits behind her in the bathtub.

“You’re softer,” he says, reaching up to cup her soapy breasts. “I like it.” He pulls her back onto his chest with an arm draped around his neck and runs his hands up and down her body, gently squeezing and stroking, the stimulation and the hot water making her light-headed. “But you still don’t look well. Is there something more I can do?”

Lilla considers telling him she could use more sleep. At least once a night he wakes her - sometimes it’s like the first night, where he startles from sleep, usually rolling her onto her belly and pushing her legs apart before he mounts her - she can think of no better word - and uses her limp body to drive away his terror. On occasion she’s been hit in the face by a thrashing arm when he’s still in the throes of his nightmare, and if he realises he’s hurt her he’s instantly contrite. That contrition turns to kisses on her neck, fingers between her legs, fucking that’s tender and sweet and confusing. Then there are the times she wakes in the pre-dawn light to find his mouth at work between her legs, her body cresting before she can shake off the fog of sleep, and he holds her and strokes her back as she trembles.

That’s not what she says, of course. “It might help if I were to get more sunlight.”

“Sunlight. Of course.” His touch is becoming more purposeful now - she can feel him growing harder against her back and he reaches between them to stroke himself. “You’ll spend an hour a day in the courtyard, see if we can’t get more colour in those pretty cheeks. Now...be a good girl and open your legs for me.”

 

She feels a little foolish sitting alone in the sunshine. Even if Cullen hadn’t forbidden her to make conversation there seems to be an understanding that she shouldn’t be spoken to - when one young templar leers at her his companion mutters something to him that makes his face turn white, and he blurts an apology before retreating.

Of course it doesn’t stop people from speaking around her. Occasionally she’ll hear gossip, snippets of news from the outside world, sometimes even talk about Cullen himself, when they forget she’s there.

“The girl you knew with the red hair,” she asks him one day. “Was she the Hero of Ferelden?”

The change in him is instant. His shoulders drop, his eyes gleam with a cold light as he advances on her. “Don't ever call her that,” he snarls as she backs up against the table in alarm. “She's no hero. Just a little mage whore, like you. A scheming bitch who uses her cunt to get what she wants.” His hand wraps around her throat and his voice is low and venomous. “And now she's used her whore’s tricks to ensnare the King of Ferelden. Fucking him under the nose of the court and his lady Queen, whispering her poison in his ear.”

“I’m sorry, Cullen, I didn’t mean - “

But he’s in another place now, his lip curling with rage. “Laughing at me, teasing me while you spread your legs for every man in the Circle. We’ll see who’s laughing now, whore.”

He turns her roughly so her face is pressed against the tabletop, fumbling at her skirts as he lifts his tunic. “I’ll have what you promised me.” He thrusts into her unprepared body and it burns but he can’t hear her whimpers, or if he does they spur him to drive in harder, pushing her onto her toes and making the table creak and groan. He's not seeing Lilla, all he’s seeing is red hair, pointed ears, _her_ body finally at his mercy. _“Magic exists to serve man and never to rule over him,”_ he grunts as his cock slams into her burning cunt. _“Never...to...rule...over...him.”_

When he’s done he collapses onto her back, the plated bulk of him crushing the air from her lungs.

“Maker,” he gasps. “Are you alright?”

“Yes.” She’s gone somewhere else, too. Somewhere she can’t feel the fierce ache between her legs or the slow trickle down her thighs. Somewhere she didn’t think for the first time he might really hurt her, maybe even kill her. So when he gathers her into his arms and lies down with her on the bed, her face pressed into his tunic, she doesn’t cry.

 

There’s no apology but there are new clothes - woollen slippers, a soft dressing gown, silken underthings (for his benefit, or hers?) and a sweet blackberry wine he knows she likes more than the sour reds he usually drinks. She picks idly at the cork, wondering what he’d say if he came back to find she’d drunk the whole thing at once. It seemed a favourite strategy for some people in the alienage, when they had something to forget.

Days pass where he’s sweet and attentive, even in bed, and it makes her feel wretched. When it’s mindless rutting he doesn’t seem to expect anything of her, but when he’s whispering her praises, kissing and stroking and focusing on her pleasure, it seems she has to offer something in return. And with every sigh, every whispered _yes,_ every roll of her hips she thinks _whore, whore._ The worst is that when she answers his breathy questions, tells him how good it feels, she’s not lying.

“Don’t pretend with me,” he growls when she arches and cries because she wants it to be over, she doesn’t want the climax he’s teasing from her and he won’t stop until she reaches it. “I know how it feels when you come, and that’s not it.” And he works her patiently, carefully, relentlessly, until the shiver of her muscles and the flutter of her walls tell him what he wants to know.

“Cullen,” she asks over breakfast, “I was wondering...do you think I might be allowed to write a letter to my sister? I know the mages aren’t supposed to write home, but…”

He frowns at her over his plate. “You’re asking me to write a letter for you?”

“No. I’d write it myself.”

“You write?” he asks, incredulous.

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You never asked.”

“Huh.” He glares at his bookshelves, his desk, obviously wondering if she’s been snooping. “No,” he says finally. “I can’t allow that.”

“I haven’t seen her in so long,” she protests weakly. “I need her to know I’m alright. I need to know _she’s_ alright.”

“She’s well,” he snaps. “I told you.”

“But how do I know -” She stops, biting her lip.

“Lilla,” he says sadly. “How am I ever to trust you, when you don’t trust me?”

He clears a bunch of scrolls from his desk before he leaves that morning and locks them in a drawer. If she had the courage she’d tell him that it’s not necessary - she’s too afraid to touch anything on his desk, sure he’d know if she did. When he returns later that day it’s with a roll of cheap parchment. He pushes it under her surprised nose, along with an inkpot and quill.

“Write something,” he orders.

“What?”

“I don’t care what. Write...the Canticle of Benedictions. _Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked -”_

“I know it,” she says softly. He looms over her at the table as she writes in neatly formed letters, her hand miraculously steady. When she spells _righteous_ correctly, he nods in satisfaction.

“Numbers?”

“You’re asking if I can write numbers?”

Cullen lets out a huff of irritation. “Every time I think there’s a shred of intelligence in that little head of yours...I’m asking if you can do sums. Add, subtract, multiply…”

“Yes.”

He stalks into his office, grabs a sheet from his desk. “Tally these.”

She’s out of practice - it takes some mouthing of numbers, some second-guessing, but in short order she has the total written down. Cullen snatches it from her and scowls.

“Where did you learn this?”

“My parents.”

“And where did they learn?”

“I don’t know.”

“And you wound up here, scrubbing floors. Why?”

“There are jobs where you need to read and write and use numbers,” she says carefully, “and then there are jobs for elves.”

It's as if she's offered him some tremendous insight, not a fact that's self-evident to anyone in Kirkwall with a pair of pointed ears. “I suppose you’re right.” He searches her face and she can see that he’s reassessing her, adjusting his expectations. “You’ll help me with my work,” he says finally. “Copying, tallying, the like. I would have an assistant here if I didn’t value my privacy.” An accusing look: it’s her fault, not his, that privacy is necessary behind these doors. “Your pay will be increased commensurate with your work, and you’ll still be expected to fulfil the rest of your tasks. Is that acceptable to you, Lilla?”

She nods, although she thinks it unlikely she’ll ever see that money - in truth, she spends a great deal of her time idle and bored and she's grateful at the prospect of having something more to do.

“That’s settled, then. Your sister, she writes as well?”

“Yes,” she says nervously. It’s no crime for an elf to be literate but she doesn’t want to drag Mari into...whatever this is.

“I will visit her,” he announces. “I will have her write to you. That is the best I can offer.”

“I’m grateful, Ser. Cullen.”

He reaches down to stroke her hair, a faint smile playing about his lips. “We’ll see,” he says. “On your knees, and show me how clever you are. How grateful.”

 

Most of her work is translating Cullen’s scribbled notes into legible reports, writing requisition lists and balancing accounts - at first he checks all her work with a critical eye, but it seems after a while he deems her satisfactory. He’s still harried and often irritable but the neat stacks of vellum on his desk grow less. And there’s a peace to their working together in silence, the scratch of nib on paper in the candelight, her bare feet resting on his lap beneath the desk as he strokes her ankles.

He brings her a letter from Mari, watching with a kind of hunger as her eyes scan the page. She's well, better than ever, even has a sweetheart. _We miss you, Lil. The templar says you're well, so why won't you come and see us?_ Her eyes blur with tears.

“It's what you wanted,” Cullen grumbles. “You should be happy.”

“I am.” She sniffs, and he throws her a handkerchief in disgust. “Thank you.”

“Stop snivelling, then, and get back to work.” But after a time he pulls her into his lap and buries his face in her neck, inhaling her scent. “Are you happy with me, Lilla?”

What can she say? “Yes.” He nuzzles her ear, and her eyes flutter shut. “Yes.”

 

Words appear with increasing frequency in his reports. _Maleficarum. Treachery. Unrest. Discord. Violence, blood, demons._ Templars stalk the halls with one hand on their sword pommels, eyeing even one another with suspicion.

“You’ll keep to my rooms,” Cullen says one day. “It’s not safe out there for you.”

“But the cleaning -”

“Strip the beds and keep the rooms tidy. Somebody else will bring meals and take care of the laundry.”

“For how long?” she asks. She’ll go mad inside these two rooms, with only a small window onto the outside world.

“I don’t know!” he snaps. “Do as I say and don’t question me, unless you want to end up Tranquil!”

She stares at him, stunned.

“I didn’t mean -” he stammers. “If someone finds out what you are, I can’t protect you. That’s all I meant.”

“Then let me go,” she says rashly. “If I’m not safe here -”

Cullen’s face turns from contrite to thunderous in an instant. “You _dare_ ask me that, after all I’ve given you?” He grabs her hair and pushes her into the wall, and when he raises his fist she’s sure he’s going to strike her. But the gauntlet slams the wall next to her head, a tiny shower of mortar rattling down in its wake.

She cowers, putting her arms up to cover her face. “Please,” she begs, “I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry, please don’t hurt me.”

When he releases her she slides to the floor, her knees giving way. “You think I would hit you?” he demands. “A defenceless woman? You stupid whore, do you think I have so little honour?”

A hysterical sob escapes her. “Oh, you’re _honourable,”_ she spits. “You’re the most honourable rapist I’ve met.”

There’s a dangerous silence, where all she can see is his booted feet. Then he walks away from her, sitting heavily behind his desk. Finally she hears his humourless laugh. “Rapist?” he says with cool amusement. “Is that what you tell yourself?”

It’s effortless, how he makes her doubt her own memory. After all, did she ever fight him? Beg him to stop, even so much as say _no?_ Yes, there were times when he took her roughly, but at least as many times when she seemed to welcome his touch, times when she took pleasure in the things he did to her.

 _You held me here,_ she wants to say. _You threatened me. I had no choice._ But if she speaks now she’ll cry, the racking, choking sobs that are building in her throat, and confirm just what he thinks of her - a hysterical, immature girl who doesn’t know her own mind. So she’s silent, scarcely daring to breathe.

There’s a creak of leather as he stands up, and the clank of his boots crossing to the door.

“You made me do this,” he says flatly, before it closes behind him and she hears the turn of a key.

 

The tension between them lingers when he returns that evening. He’s silent, and she can’t even look at him. She picks listlessly at her dinner and for once he doesn’t police her eating, brooding over his own meal.

Finally he gets up with a sigh. She trembles as he makes his way around the table and crouches before her, turning her chin towards him.

“You didn’t mean it, did you little one?” He takes her hands and kisses her knuckles, and she can see that his own are bruised and split. “You wouldn’t say such things if you weren’t afraid. It’s frightening, what’s happening out there.”

She is afraid. As afraid of losing his approval as of anything he might do to her, afraid that the only person in this world she can talk to might become angry and distant. That’s why when he kisses her she opens to his touch, melting into his arms with an overwhelming sense of relief that it’s over now, she can discard her sorrow and resentment and just _feel._ Feel his lips on her mouth, and her neck, and her breast when the dress she wears is pulled over her head, and her cunt when he lies her on the bed and worships between her legs.

“Say you love me,” he murmurs and it’s a mistake but she does, and he’s so happy, so tender and kind when he fucks her, when he slides into her waiting warmth and brings her undone, over and over.

When he goes out the next morning, he still locks the door.

 

She’s dozing when it happens, drifting gently in and out of sleep. There’s a muffled _boom,_ and a rattling of objects on the shelves, and a distant rumble. Then shouting, the thunder of boots in the corridor.

“Cullen?” she calls drowsily, but he’s not there. She stumbles to the window and sees the sky coloured in an unearthly light, and she knows something is terribly, terribly wrong.

“Cullen!” The door is still locked, and she pounds on it in vain. “Cullen! Anyone!” The corridor is silent now.

Lilla paces the length of her prison for what feels like hours, wringing her hands in frustration. There’s no bell to tell the time, but it’s not yet dark when finally, _finally,_ there’s the rattle of his key in the door.

“You’re safe? Of course you are.” Cullen crushes her to his chest, breathless with exertion. “Listen to me carefully. There’s been an explosion. A mage has blown up the Chantry, and Meredith has invoked the Right of Annulment.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means all mages in the Circle are to be executed.”

“No!” she protests. “No, you can’t do that.”

“Not you.” He takes her face in his gauntleted hands. “Nobody will hurt you. Nobody needs to know you’re here.”

“You can’t mean to leave me here.” His face is set, and she begins to panic. “You can’t. You can’t leave me here while they kill everyone. While you...you can’t, Cullen, you can’t just kill them, they didn't do anything.”

“There’s no choice.”

“Let me out,” she pleads. “I’ll die if I stay here, you can’t - please, Cullen, please…”

“Just shut up, and keep your head down.” Cullen glances nervously out into the corridor. “I can’t deal with you right now. I have to lock you in.”

“No!” The walls are closing in around her, the air is suddenly too thin to breathe. “Let me go, _let me go!”_ She reaches deep inside herself, mana building and coiling -

“Don’t you fucking _dare.”_ Cullen blankets her magic without effort, marching her into the next room and throwing her down on the bed. “Do you want to be killed? Because that’s what will happen if anyone finds a mage in here.”

“I hate you,” she hisses. “You fucking monster.” She grabs the nearest thing to hand, a heavy candlestick, and throws it at him, as shocked as he is when it hits him in the face.

“You haven’t seen monsters.” Cullen wipes his split lip but blood keeps flowing from the cut, staining his white tunic, falling in drops to the stone floor. “Keep quiet. I’ll find you when it’s over, one way or another.”

She’s going to die here, she thinks as she hears the key turn after him. She’s going to die in this room, and nobody but him will remember her name.

There’s screaming, before long, and the rasp of steel and the crackle of flame and sounds she can’t identify, thumps and hisses and low, inhuman laughter. It goes on and on for what seems like forever and she can’t tell who’s winning, if anyone, or if everything is just being destroyed.

Then there’s running feet, and a whistle that might be arrows, and the ground shaking with more magic.

“Hawke!” she hears someone shout. “This way.”

Hawke. Hawke means safety, and protection. She runs to the door and slaps against the wood with her hand.

“Is somebody out there? Help me, please.”

“Did you hear something?”

“Hear something? Do you mean the templars who are trying to kill us, or the abominations who are trying to kill us? Or the _demons_ who are trying to kill us? Come _on,_ Merrill.”

“Help,” she cries, then shouts, then screams, but the footsteps recede.

 

“Thank the Maker you’re safe.”

Cullen’s tunic is ripped and scorched, his armour covered in blood, not all of it his own, his lip puffy and bruised.

“Let me out,” she mumbles, clutching at him. “Please, let me out.”

“Shh,” he says. “You’re safe. Meredith’s dead. It’s over.”

His words make no sense. “I don’t want to die here. Please, Cullen.”

“You’re safe, do you hear me? Nobody’s going to die.” When he strokes her hair the strands catch painfully in his gauntlets. “Nobody can hurt you.”

 _You left me. You locked me up and left me to die._ Exhausted, she hides her face in his chest and lets the tears flow.

 


	4. Haven part I

The Seeker disapproves of her.

She's known it since their first meeting. “And who is this?” Cassandra had asked when Cullen, as usual, had failed to introduce her.

“My scribe,” he had said dismissively and she had watched the woman evaluate her blushing curtsey, lips thinning, knowing her for his whore.

“Will you be bringing your...scribe...to Ferelden?” The pause was subtle, but not overly so.

Ferelden? Lilla had glanced at him in confusion while he met the Seeker's eyes, unabashed.

“Yes.”

“There is no need to answer right away,” Cassandra had said, “you may discuss it in private.”

“No need,” Cullen had answered curtly. “She goes with me.”

And so it was settled, and here she is, a year on, another piece of baggage on the long journey south.

The Seeker looks down at her now, stern as always. “Would you please advise Commander Cullen that we are delayed,” she says, all but her short hair unruffled by the buffeting winds. “The Captain says that the storms have blown us off course and we may be an additional day or two in getting to Highever.”

“Yes, Messere.” He won't be pleased, but there's nothing to be done about that. She hurries to Cullen's cabin.

He's where she left him, sitting ashen-faced at the foot of his cot next to his untouched breakfast. He takes the news with a groan of irritation.

“You should eat something,” she ventures cautiously. “Or at least drink some water. You'll make yourself ill.”

“I'm already ill. Stop clucking over me.” There's a fine sheen of sweat on his brow and top lip, and she knows it's more than just the rough journey making him unwell.

She clears her throat softly. “Perhaps a little more lyrium -”

“No.” His eyes snap open and he takes her wrist roughly. “That's not what I need.”

It is, but she knows better than to argue. Instead she looks questioningly at his lap, and he shakes his head.

“Take your clothes off and lie down.”

It's chilly, but she obeys without hesitation. Cloak, boots, dress, woollen stockings and smallclothes make a neat pile on the floor, and she takes her place on his narrow cot.

“Touch yourself.”

She knows what he likes by now, touching herself like he would touch her: squeezing her breasts together, pinching and rolling her nipples. Slowly, slowly she trails a hand down her belly, runs two fingers up the length of her slit and he wraps his fingers around her ankle, too weak to do more than cup himself through his pants. She spreads her folds open for his viewing and circles her slickened pearl, watching the tip of his tongue dart out to moisten parched lips.

She doesn't know if it's arousal that helps him through these moments, or regaining a sense of control - knowing Cullen as she does, probably both. When the withdrawal is bad, it takes the edge off his temper to have her degrade herself before him.

“Come for me,” he says weakly and she fingers herself harder and faster, watching his hooded eyes as she crests and shudders because that's what he demands, what he needs. When she's finished, pink-cheeked and breathless, he lies down beside her. The mattress is tiny; but so is she, gathered against the contours of his body.

“Good girl.” He sucks her fingers into his mouth, cleaning her arousal with his tongue. “You come so prettily for me. You know what I need.”

“I could…if you wanted, I could help the headache.”

Cullen tenses. “Magic?”

“Yes.”

He shakes his head. “I'd rather the pain.”

 

“So,” Varric asks a touch too casually, “what's the deal with you and Curly?”

She focuses on the horizon, or where she imagines it to be amongst the endless grey of sky and sea. “I'm his scribe.”

“Sure you are. I saw you during the cleanup, following him around like a little shadow. Never lets you more than a couple of paces out of his sight, does he?”

“I help him.”

“I don't doubt it.” The dwarf looks up at her with his too-shrewd eyes. “See, what I'm struggling to understand is how you, a mage, weren't part of the Circle. And why now the Circles are disbanded, we're all still pretending you're not a mage.”

“Hawke has mage friends who weren't in the Circle.”

“Yeah, but they weren't _scribing_ for the Knight-Captain.” He drops his voice. “Look, I understand back then he could have destroyed you with a snap of his fingers. But what does he have over you now?”

“Nothing,” she snaps. “He's my employer, nothing more.”

Varric sighs. “Have it your way, kid. But when you decide you need help…”

“You're a prisoner,” she says flatly. “How are you supposed to help anyone?”

“Maybe I can't. But maybe that's how I know one when I see one.”

“I'm not a prisoner.”

“Sure.” He grins suddenly. “You know, Fenris was ready to tear his heart out for you.”

“Fenris?”

“The elf. White-haired, broody, prone to sudden outbursts of violence?”

She'd seen his glare, assumed it was directed at her. “What stopped him?”

“Hawke. Convinced him we had enough Templar trouble without killing the one who was actually trying to do some good.”

It stings, the thought that a stranger should care so much for her well-being, while Cullen…

“If it's any consolation, I think someone got there before he did.”

Varric stares at her before letting out a surprising bark of laughter. “Good to see there's life in you yet. Hang onto that.”

“Varric!”

“The Seeker calls,” he says with a sigh. “Oh, Merrill says your sister's doing well. I saw her before we left.”

Lilla suppresses a sigh of relief. “Don't you people have anything better to gossip about?” she asks irritably. 

“What can I say, with Hawke gone it's a dull time.”

“Varric!”

“Coming, Seeker! I've told her everything I know,” he grumbles. “Woman won't be happy until she's wrung me out like a dishcloth.”

Lilla’s relieved that the scrutiny has ended for the time being. Until she turns to see Cullen, pale and glowering at her shoulder.

“I don't like you talking to that dwarf.”

“He talked to me,” she points out reasonably, and his scowl deepens.

“You didn't have to talk back. He's a bad influence.”

 _A bad influence,_ from the man who corrupted her until she was good for nothing but to serve his needs. It's useless to argue. “I'm sorry. I'll do better.”

His hand rests on her back for just a moment. “I'll try to get us adjoining rooms in Highever. Or at least close by.”

“I think everybody knows.”

“That's no reason to rub it in their faces. We're doing the Maker's work. We should keep up appearances.”

He doesn't care that she's an open secret. He's impervious to the mutterings of _whore_ that trail after her like smoke, to the point where she's ashamed to look her own sister in the face.

 _What does he have over you?_ Everything.

 

Cullen is thwarted in Highever. Cassandra insists he share with Varric, to keep an eye on him. That leaves Lilla in a room with the Seeker. Cassandra wears a long, scratchy-looking nightdress and lights a candle by her bedside before turning to Lilla with a frown.

“Do you mind if I read?”

“No, of course not.” She pulls the covers up to her neck. “What are you reading?”

“Nothing,” the Seeker says brusquely, and turns her back.

 

“This is a mess,” Cullen complains. “Things were more orderly during the Blight.”

They pass shell after shell of burnt-out cottages. Packs of wandering refugees, many with tales of banditry and worse, mages and templars alike sowing chaos and terror throughout the countryside.

“This is what we are trying to put right,” Cassandra says stiffly.

“If we ever make it to the Conclave.” Varric swings his short legs. “The roads are snowed over, half the countryside’s on fire…why did the Divine decide to hold this in Ferelden, exactly?”

The seeker sniffs. “Would you prefer Orlais, in the middle of a civil war?”

“Maker, no. I hate Orlesians. And…this isn't a war?”

Cullen is still uneasy. “We shouldn't be travelling by wagon. It's too slow. Draws the wrong sort of attention.”

“Oh, no no no,” Varric protests. “I don't do horseback.”

This makes Cassandra smile for the first time all day. “We could put you in a saddlebag. Or sling you over the back, like a sack of potatoes.”

“Very funny, Seeker.” Varric hunches down on the wagon seat and pulls his coat up to his ears. In the back, Lilla watches the scorched fields roll slowly by and recalls long mornings in the stuffy alienage Chantry, the droning voice of the Revered Mother.

_And as the black clouds came upon them,_  
_They looked on what pride had wrought,_  
_And despaired._

 

“You there! The Commander's elf!”

Haven is in chaos. After weeks of slow progress caused by everything from snowstorms to bandits to broken axles, they have arrived. Only to find the sky torn asunder, the Divine lost, and the Temple of Sacred Ashes in, well, ashes.

“More troops needed up the mountainside!” the woman shouts over the wind. “There's a new rift opened up by the forward camp, demons everywhere. Go!”

Lilla stumbles on. She's never been so cold, the frigid air burning her nose and ears, chilling her lungs when she breathes too deeply.

Finally she spots Cullen in the press of soldiers. “What is it?” he snaps. “I told you to keep out of danger.”

“New rift,” she gasps. “Forward camp. Need more soldiers.”

“Maker's breath.” He barks a string of orders, turns to go before he remembers her. “Stay down here,” he growls. “If anyone else has a message for me give it to a scout.”

She wanders back down the hill, at a loss for what to do. There are only a handful of people she knows here and every one of them is off fighting demons. Stay out of danger, he said, but where will the danger appear next?

“You.” A soldier clutches at her sleeve. “Are you a healer?”

“I'm not, I'm sorry…”

“Oh Maker, he's going to die.” His face crumples and she realises he's little more than a boy. “His ma’s going to kill me.”

“Where is he?” she's shocked to hear herself saying.

“Can you help? Oh bless you, bless you. He's in the Chantry.” The boy drags her by the arm until he remembers himself and directs her instead, trotting along at her side. “A demon appeared right on top of him, one of them big spindly ones - have you seen ‘em? Right horrible, they are. Slashed all the way down to his ribs and he's bleeding like a stuck nug, I was supposed to look out for him but how can you look out for a thing like that? Appeared out of nowhere, it did.” He pauses breathlessly at the Chantry door. “So are you a healer, then?”

“I'm not trained, but I can do a little. I can't promise anything.”

“Better‘n nothing.”

It's dim inside the Chantry. The wounded are hunched over on pews or laid out on blankets on the floor.

“Don't you have healers here?”

“Farther afield. Rifts opened up down the valley, we weren't expecting…well, we weren't expecting none of this, were we?” The soldier leads her to a grey-faced boy around his own age, his chest packed with red-soaked bandages.

“Who's in charge here?” A pair of Chantry sisters and a soldier look at each other blankly. “Do you have clean bandages? Water? Healing potions?”

“We've used what potions we had, but we've been melting snow,” one of the sisters says. “There are plenty of bandages for now.”

“What about elfroot?”

“It grows in the woods.”

“Can someone be sent to gather more?” She peels the bandages back from the wounded lad, seeing glistening muscle and bone. His companion is still beside her and she turns to him. “I can slow the bleeding but he needs more help than I can give him. Find a scout and send to the forward camp, see if they can spare a healer.”

It's so long since she drew on her mana she's almost shocked when it stirs in response. In the alienage she would knit bones and ease fevers but she's never faced anything on this scale - what if she knits the tissues together wrongly? Slowing the bleeding too much might cause a clot that will kill him as surely as his injuries. If she knits the skin together will it slow the work of the real healers when they arrive? Or might he bleed silently into his chest cavity until his heart gives out?

There's too much she doesn't know and now they're all looking at her, waiting for her to save him.

Eyes closed, she reaches out. There, a tear in the viscera that can be knit back together. There, a severed artery that can be sealed off for now, buying time to work on his wounds. And so it goes, a hundred small injuries minimised, blood saved drop by drop. She barely notices as clean hands change his bandages and someone pours a tincture of elfroot down his throat - he's conscious, that's good, and he can swallow when they lift his head so the makeshift potion won't end up in his airways. But with consciousness comes pain and she expends more energy to soothe his screaming nerves.

“She's exhausted,” she finally hears as if from a great distance. “Who let her drain herself like this? Find the girl a place to rest and I'll take over from here.” Lilla lets them shift her and wrap her in blankets, and the hard Chantry floor feels welcoming as a bed made from clouds when she finally rests her head.

“Will he live?” she croaks. “Will he live?”

“Hush, child,” someone says, and what might have been, “He'll live,” before she drifts into unconsciousness.

She's woken some time later by the slam of the Chantry door, the howl of the wind outside followed by the heavy tread of boots.

“Where is she?” Cullen's voice demands then he's there at her side, gripping her shoulder with a mailed hand and shaking her. “What did you do, you stupid girl? I told you to keep out of trouble!”

“She saved a soldier's life, Commander.”

“To the void with that.” He scoops her up, blankets and all. “Someone find her a proper bed, for Andraste’s sake!”

“There are tents, Ser -”

“Tents,” he says in disgust. “If that's the best you can do she may as well rest in mine.” Then it's into the freezing air and down towards the makeshift practice yard, and she can only imagine the incredulous looks before the canvas of his tent slaps closed behind them.

“What were you thinking?” he berates her as he lies her down on the stretcher beside his desk. “Using magic, of all the foolish things. Have you any idea the trouble you've caused me?”

She's too weak and tired to speak. _I had no choice,_ she wants to say. He was dying. Would Cullen walk away, if using his sword could save a life?

He rustles amongst his possessions and she hears the pop of a cork, feels his hand cupping the back of her neck as he presses a vial to her mouth. She shakes her head: no, no, she can't, not the lyrium, he has so little left and he needs it - but he prises her lips apart with his thumb and she feels the cool liquid trickle down her throat, spreading out through her limbs and leaving the warm glow of mana in its wake. When the vial is drained he bends to unlace her boots, and tucks the covers around her feet.

“Sleep,” he says roughly. “I'll deal with you later.”

She sleeps.

 

“Lilla.” There's the smell of whiskey. Sword-roughened hands pulling at her clothing and then the scratch of stubble at her chest. “It's madness out there, Lilla. When they said something happened to you, you collapsed…”

Between mumbled words Cullen's mouth is frantic at her skin, lips and tongue pulling at her breasts and belly. “I can't lose you, Lilla. You keep me sane. Promise me, _promise me_ you won't risk yourself like that again.”

“I promise,” she sighs, squirming under his attentions. A sharp tug and her thick winter leggings are around her thighs, then his mouth is hot, wet and soft between her legs, suckling and pressing at her tender flesh until she writhes and whines, broken attempts at his name falling from her lips.

“I've missed the taste of you,” he breathes against her damp skin. “The smell, the _feel._ The sounds, when you're so wet around me, the moans and wails.” As he speaks he's easing her leggings down, running his hands up and down her calves and thighs like he's committing her body to memory. “I miss being inside you.”

“It won't hold us, you can't -”

She's pulled down onto his chest, legs spread wide over his hips. There's the briefest of fumbles then he _spears_ her on his cock, hitting that spot that makes her howl into the thick fur of his cloak. Again, and again, he drives up into her, and as always it's wrong and perfect and dizzying, guilt and shame and need, such sucking, drowning need.

There's a hand in her hair and fingers grasping and squeezing her hip, grinding her down on his cock, hard and relentless. Until like a wall, it hits her, shattering her already fractured mind into a blast of pure white bliss.

“I wasn't in any danger,” she whispers after as he cradles her on his chest.

“You're always in danger, little one.” Cullen runs his hands slowly up and down her sides. “Demons are drawn to you every time you use magic. They want to take you and possess you, to twist you to their own ends. That's why you need me to protect you.”

It's a nice story he tells himself. But she knows he's wrong. Her mind’s too full of him to let anything else in. Cullen is all the desire, the rage, the despair she can take - there's no space in there for a demon to breathe.


	5. Haven part II

Andraste’s chosen is a mage, and Cullen is not coping well with the fact. 

Certainly, he's been working alongside mages since the Kirkwall rebellion, managing to hide his distaste when they use their abilities in a flagrantly public fashion, but this… 

“A mage,” he mutters, pacing the tiny length of his tent. “What does it mean?” 

He's not expecting an answer from her, Lilla knows. And he's not finding one in the Chantry, kneeling under the prophet’s stony gaze. Maker knows he's not getting any answers from the Herald himself. 

Idris Lavellan, for his part, is taking his newfound fame surprisingly well. Lilla watches him from her perch in the corner of the war room, his dark, laughing eyes and his easy smile. Even Cullen can't help but be charmed. 

“I like the way this man thinks,” he says in his lilting Dalish tones. “Let's send patrols to help the refugees - I look forward to hearing this Lord Kildarn’s response.”

Cullen turns bashful with pride, and when the Herald catches Lilla’s eye he actually _winks._ Flustered, she hides her face in her notes. 

“So, the Commander's scribe.” He catches her between the Chantry and the practice field, long legs effortlessly keeping stride with her hurried pace. “How did that come about?”

“It's a long story, Your Worship.”

“Ugh, don't call me that. So the two of you are…?”

“No.”

“Oh.” He seems surprised, but also oddly pleased in a way she doesn't want to dwell upon. “I suppose I, of all people, should be less quick to believe rumours.”

If he knew the truth he wouldn't wink at her, or smile in that lopsided, disarming way. Now she can see Cullen glaring in their direction and she stares at her feet. “The Commander is waiting on these reports, Your - I should go.”

_“Dareth shiral,_ Lilla.” He gives her a strange, quick bow, arms crossed over his narrow chest, then he's leaping away on his path to the blacksmith. 

“Don't bother the Herald,” Cullen snaps. There's something behind his eyes darker than irritation. “He has more important things to do than listen to your prattling.”

She struggles to remember a time when she’s done anything that could be described as _prattling._ “I was being polite.”

“Yes, I see how polite you were being.” He snatches the reports from her hands and turns his glare back towards the drilling soldiers. “Watch yourself.”

 

Cullen has been given a room off the Chantry to share with Lady Josephine, the two of them apparently being above rumours. Perhaps it helps that the Commander's elvish whore is the worst-kept secret in Thedas - besides, perhaps, the King of Ferelden’s elvish whore. 

She would have been happy enough to sleep in the tent. “Too far,” Cullen says with a scowl. “What if I need you for something?” Besides knowing what _something_ is, she expects he'd like to be able to keep an eye on her. She suggests the cells below the Chantry, knowing in advance what cutting remarks Varric might have about dungeons and prisoners. But they're quiet, safe from the weather and nearby enough that she can be summoned easily. She has a pallet with warm blankets, a lantern and a little stack of books, and it's as close to her own room as she's ever had. 

Lady Montilyet is like a brightly coloured bauble, all gold and ruffles and huge, brown eyes. She wonders what she makes of Cullen's nightmares, fears for her at first because she knows his appetites when he awakes, knows the blind, seeking, life-affirming lust that drives him. So it's a relief that first night when he steals downstairs, shakes her awake and takes her silently, urgently in the darkness. 

“Why are you watching her?” he asks the next day, when it's just the two of them left in the war room. 

She's not going to tell him she was looking for fear, shame, some sign that he'd hurt or frightened her when it was just the two of them, alone in the night. 

“Did you wake her?” she asks. 

“Who knows? She sleeps like the dead.”

“You wouldn't…” She has to ask, has to know even though it will make him furious, but he's two steps ahead of her. He laughs that rough, low laugh, backing her up against the door.

“You should understand better by now,” he growls. “Josephine is a lady. I wouldn't dream of doing to her the things I do to you.” Gloved hands pin her wrists above her head, hot amber eyes burning into hers and all she can focus on is that scar on his lip, the one she gave him, the way it twists and whitens when he sneers. “Because you are so far from a lady, Lilla,” he continues as he peels off his glove. “You're a whore, and that's why I use you like a whore.”

“Please,” she whispers. “Not here.”

“Anywhere I want.” His hand slips under her waistband, three thick fingers seeking out and breaching her tight sheath, stretching and filling her. “You're ready for it. You can't lie to me, your cunt gives you up every time.” He's twisting, pushing, driving her up on to her toes and his thumb working hard at the apex of her sex. 

Lilla burns with humiliation and the knowledge that she can't keep silent much longer - it's bad enough that the smell of arousal fills the air and the door rattles faintly on its hinges with every thrust of his wrist. She tries to bury her face in his cloak but he leans away, laughing cruelly. 

“You don't want them to know?” he whispers. “Don't want everyone to hear how much you love my hand in your cunt?” 

“Please, Cullen…I'm begging you...”

He relents, clamping his gloved hand over her mouth to muffle her piteous cries while the other drives her to a shaking finish. 

“I hope that's enough of your foolish questions,” he says finally. “Find something to do for the rest of the afternoon. I'm sick of the sight of you.”

 

The chill is welcome on her flushed skin. She wanders amongst the trees gathering elfroot for potions, and after a while the work is soothing - just blank snow and the crunch of her boots, wandering from plant to plant and snapping the tough green stalks with her fingers. 

Cullen's words don't have the power to wound her any more. She's happy that the gentle ambassador is safe with him; it was mostly guilt she had been feeling, she realises now. Part of the reason he's become this way is because she let him, she yielded so easily she could hardly blame him if he thought he could reach out and take any woman he wanted. 

But it's just her. Perhaps it's true what he says sometimes, that she's ensnared him with her witchery, though Maker knows she never tried to. If there is such a snare, she wonders which of them is caught more tightly. 

“That would be quicker with a knife.”

The quiet voice makes her drop the plants in fright. There's something deeply unsettling about thinking you're alone, until suddenly you're not. 

_“Aneth ara,_ Lilla.” Under his russet brown hood the Herald seems a stranger, until he kneels to help and she sees his inked skin and twinkling eyes. “You're a skittish little thing, aren't you? Like a startled fennec.”

“I'm not a thing,” she retaliates before she can catch herself. 

“Of course you're not. _Ir abelas.”_

“I'm sorry,” she scrambles to say. “I didn't mean -”

“Please, Lilla. I want you to speak your mind. So few people do, since…” He looks down at his gloved hand, then his crooked smile returns. “I almost long for the days when people called me knife-ear. Wait - they don't call you that, do they?”

“Not to my face.”

Idris’s laugh is sudden and melodious. “So you have a temper?” 

“No.” She looks down at a sprig of elfroot in her hands, picking idly at the woody stalk. “I have a Commander.”

“Well.” The Dalish elf straightens and offers her a hand up. “I can see why people wouldn't want to run afoul of that.”

They stand together somewhat awkwardly for a moment. Then Idris smiles his disarming smile and pushes his hood back, freeing his raven hair to fall around his shoulders. 

“How much of this do you need?” 

“As much as I can carry, I suppose.” If she hadn't left the Chantry in such a rush, she might have thought to bring something to carry it in. “But I'm out of hands.”

“I have two.” And he does: clever, olive-skinned, long-fingered hands. “And a pouch that fits an amazing amount of elfroot.”

“Don't you have more important things to do than help me?” she asks, remembering Cullen's warning. 

“More important than gathering supplies for our healers? I think not. Speaking of which,” he says, tilting his head. “I hear you're quite a healer yourself.”

She thrusts her handful of herbs at him. “No I'm not. I did what I could until the real healer arrived.”

“The _real_ healer says you saved that boy’s life.” He lopes over to the next patch of elfroot, drawing a tiny knife from his boot. “He says you could be a valuable asset to the Inquisition with the right training. So…why don't you have training?” 

“I don't know.”

“Weren't you in the Kirkwall Circle?” 

“Not exactly.” Lilla crouches next to him. “You seem to have heard a lot of things about me.”

“I asked,” he says matter-of-factly. “I find it's the quickest way to find things out, when you're curious about someone.”

“Why would the Herald of Andraste be curious about me?” 

“The Herald of Andraste likes you.” 

Suddenly she feels as if she's walking on uneven ground, as if a misstep could send her falling, falling into who knows what. “You don't even know me,” she says carefully. 

“I see you,” he says simply. “You're kind, and good. And braver than you think.”

There's a silence, as she searches his face for a hint of mockery. But there's nothing, just the hint of a question in his dark, gentle eyes. Their hands touch for a second - less than a second - as they reach for the same plant, and she draws back as if burned. 

“I think that's enough elfroot.” She stands abruptly, looking back towards the village, towards Cullen, with a feeling of guilt as if something much more intimate had taken place than the accidental brush of fingers. 

“I'm sorry.” He seems just as startled by her response. “Is it the mark? I don't think it's contagious, but I can't be sure.”

“I just don't…please.” 

He backs up a little as he stands, as though she really is a small creature poised for flight. “Whatever you want, Lilla,” he says softly. “Truly.”

“I'd like to go back.”

“Then that's what we'll do.” And he leads the way, glancing back from time to time to make sure she's still behind him.

They emerge near the Chantry. “I'm going to sneak these over to Adan’s hut and hope nobody sees me on the way,” he whispers. “And I'm going to take all the credit. I hope you don't mind?”

He watches her with those dancing eyes, waiting for a smile she can't help but deliver. 

“Please do,” she says. “Adan scares me.”

“Oh, he scares me too. That's why I'm going to steal onto his good side.”

“Well, good luck. _Dareth…”_

_“Shiral._ And to you, Lilla.”

He vanishes as silently as a rogue, and she absent-mindedly rubs her thumb against the backs of her fingers. 

 

When Cullen comes to her that night he's shaking. 

“Maker help me, I thought about it,” he whispers raggedly as he kisses his way up her body. “When I woke up like that and she was sleeping…for a moment there I didn't care who it was, I just _wanted.”_

“But you didn't.” She wraps her legs around him and guides him inside her heat. “You wouldn't do that.”

“Thank the Maker for you.” His strokes are slow and hard, a languid roll of his hips ending in a sharp thrust that makes her toes curl. “You're the only one who understands me. I'd lose myself, without you.” He cups her face as he drives in harder and deeper, his voice growing hoarse. “Am I a good man, Lilla?” 

“Yes,” she gasps, rising to meet him, because he tries, he tries so hard and that's more than most do. 

He stays for a while after, wrapped in her arms like a child. 

“Cullen…” she ventures cautiously. “Do you think I could train as a healer?” 

“No.” His answer is instant. “I can't spare you.”

“Couldn't someone else do the same? The Inquisition needs more healers - “

His sudden grip on her wrist is like iron. “Who's been putting these ideas in your head? I said no. I won't have you practising magic, I don't care how useful. You're too weak.”

Against her better judgement she persists. “I could learn not to drain myself again -” 

“That's not what I'm talking about. I've had to cut down abominations. Mages who thought they could resist temptation. You're not even Harrowed, and you think I'll let you risk your safety and the safety of everyone around you, so you can feel special?” He pulls her hair cruelly, dragging her face down to his. “You're not special to anyone but _me,_ Lilla. And if I find you've been doing magic behind my back, I swear you'll suffer for it.”

After he's gone she remembers dark brown eyes and three simple words. _I see you._ And she's glad he doesn't see her, not really, because he'd know there's nothing there to like. 

 

As the Breach continues to grow the question of whether to seek the aid of the rebel mages or the templars becomes more urgent, and more complex. Long hours arguing at the war table don't seem to help change anyone’s mind,  and it only becomes more heated in the days after they uncover the magister’s involvement in Redcliffe. 

It's after one of these verbal sparring matches, when Cullen has dismissed her and gone down to shout at his recruits, that Idris finds her on the low wall outside the Chantry. 

“What do you think we should do?” he asks, crossing his legs as he perches next to her. 

“Cullen doesn't trust the mages."

“Which should surprise no one. But I asked what _you_ think.”

She dares to look at his face. He couldn't be more different to Cullen: lithe and dark with a long, straight nose and narrow chin. And she can sense he's not teasing her, or humouring her, but that he genuinely wishes to know her opinion. 

“I think…” she says hesitantly, “Fiona has made a terrible mistake. But the others didn't make that choice, and they shouldn't be judged for it.” He nods, attentive, and she finds the courage to continue. “And I can understand the mages. They're scared, and maybe if we offer them safety and a way out they'll be happy to join us. I don't understand what the templars want.”

“And Cullen doesn't either.”

“No.” Feeling disloyal, she admits, “I think he's looking for something familiar. Something that might not exist any more.”

Idris heaves a sigh. “I think you're right. But you and I are mages - isn't it possible we're making the same error?” 

“Yes.” 

They attract some curious glances, the Herald of Andraste and the Commander's elf. Everything rests on his shoulders, she knows - the others can advise but it's to him they look for answers. 

“Does Andraste guide you?” she asks. 

“I'm Dalish,” he reminds her gently. 

“I know, but you're the Herald too. Aren't you?” 

Idris straightens his legs with a wry grin. “If that was Andraste in the Fade, she's been very distant with me since. Then again,” he shrugs, "the Elven gods have been no more help.”

“Perhaps she's guiding you and you don't know it.” She's not sure why she's so desperate to believe - is it because Cullen believes? If a mage can be chosen by Andraste to save Thedas, and Cullen can put aside his prejudices enough to follow him, then what more is possible? But Idris shakes his head. 

“There's been plenty of men and women who believed they were doing the work of some god or other, down the years. I can't say I'm too impressed with their achievements, are you? Look what the Maker's word has done for elves, or mages.”

“We're not slaves to Tevinter,” she points out. 

“Yes, but are we free?” He takes her hand, his slim fingers surprisingly warm in the chill air. “Are you free?” 

“Not as free as some, perhaps.” Gently, she reclaims her hand and tucks it in her coat pocket. “Freer than others.”

“My fault,” he laughs, “for pushing you for more than one straight answer in a day.”

They stare up in companionable silence at the the Breach, still casting its sickly green light over Haven. 

“What will you decide, then?”

“What feels right to me, I suppose. It's all any of us can do.” The twinkle returns to his eyes. “Thank you, Lilla. You've given me much to think about.”

The next day he leaves for Redcliffe. 


	6. Haven part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has left comments and kudos so far! This chapter is long and angsty.

“You could find more, when this runs out.”

Cullen stares at the little vial of blue like it's the last meal of a doomed man. “I don't want more,” he says through clenched teeth. “I want to be free of it.”

That word again. The tiny rations he's allowed himself aren't enough to keep the headaches at bay. He's exhausted, constantly thirsty, irritable and forgetful. He reads obsessively over the notes she takes, names, connections, events, in an effort to hide his weakness from the other advisors. It stays unspoken between them that the women are too shrewd not to notice - to acknowledge that they had been quietly working to compensate for his shortcomings might just destroy him.

“But is this the best time to stop? It's -”

“Don't I have enough headaches without you harping at me?” He drains the last of the lyrium and slams the vial on the table with a force that makes the glass crack. “Leave it,” he snaps when she would tidy it for him. “Leave me. I want a moment’s peace.”

Outside the air is bracing, the white-covered landscape almost blinding after the dim interior of the Commander's tent. It's quieter than usual, Cassandra and many of the soldiers having accompanied the Herald to Redcliffe, and there's an air of nervous anticipation about what will transpire there.

“Think the place is going to fill up with mages, then?” she hears muttered between scouts.

“Maybe, but they'll be kept in line. Inquisition won't let them run the place.”

“Without templars, how do we stop them running the place? Turn it into bloody Tevinter, they will. It's bad enough the Herald’s a mage -”

“Enough of that,” his companion says. “The Herald's a good sort. And if a mage is good enough for Andraste -”

“Good enough for the Commander and all,” the first one laughs.

Lilla allows her hood to fall back as she passes them, the tell-tale red hair flying about in the wind, and she takes a little too much satisfaction in seeing their faces go slack in horror.

She won't mention their conversation to Cullen, of course - his anger would fall as much on her as the hapless scouts. But they don't need to know that.

The raven arrives early in the evening, and Leliana scans the contents before passing it wordlessly to Cullen.

“Allied,” he says flatly.

“We gave the Herald little guidance on how best to negotiate the mages’ cooperation.” Josephine, ever the diplomat, attempts to smooth over the tension in the room. “I am sure that he did what seemed -”

“This is a mistake,” Cullen interrupts. “It leaves us vulnerable to Maker knows what…” He pinches hard between his eyebrows, and Lilla knows he's in the grip of another headache.

“Perhaps we should hold off on discussing this until the Inquisitor returns,” the spymaster suggests, and Cullen scoffs.

“Oh, yes, when he returns with his retinue of apostates! What a perfect idea.”

Josephine winces as he slams the door shut behind him. “That was…unexpected.”

“Perhaps not,” murmurs Leliana, “when one knows what he went through during the Blight.”

Both women glance at Lilla. “Please excuse me,” she manages to say. “I should see if he needs anything.” And with that, she hurries after him.

He's not in his tent, nor anywhere near the practice yard. Not in his room, not in the Chantry at all that she can see. She wanders aimlessly for a while, around the frozen lake, near the armoury where she considers asking the Grey Warden or one of the Bull's Chargers if they've seen him. But when she approaches Blackwall he turns toward her with a curious frown, and she looks at the ground and hurries on.

At last she gives up the search and goes to her own cell. If he needs something from her, she reasons, he'll know where to look.

Hours later, he finds her.

She hears his unsteady steps. The clank of his armour, his muttered cursing as he stumbles into an empty chest in the dark.

“Where are you, you little bitch?”

He's been drinking. Lilla hurries to light her lantern before he falls and hurts himself in the dark. “I'm here, Cullen.”

“Hiding, are we? I should have known.” He looms in the doorway. “Did you think I wouldn't find you?”

“I wasn't hiding. I looked for you -”

“Lying whore.” He fumbles with his cloak before throwing it in the corner. “I know you. Irving’s favourite, so good, so clever, so _promising.”_ Cullen's laugh is high and unnatural as he unbuckles his armour. “Promising! The things you promised…”

“Cullen.” Lilla backs up to the stone wall. “I'm not who you think I am.”

“You think I'll believe that? You showed me who you are. First _they_ showed me, they used you to tease and torture me and I told them it was lies…lies, you weren't like that, you weren't like them. And then _you_ showed me…”

“Cullen, please.”

His eyes are wide and unseeing. “You laughed at me. Called me weak, and crazy. A coward.”

“That wasn't me.” She watches him remove his belt, bracing herself for a blow that doesn't come. Instead he wraps the leather once, twice, three times around her wrists.

“It was you. It was what you were all along, I was just too naive to see it.” Lilla cries out as he drags her and turns her to face the wall. There's a heavy iron ring set low in the stone, a relic from the times when the Cult of Andraste practiced their dark rituals. “I see you now. All of you, just waiting for them to take you, to _turn_ you.” This as he lashes her hands to the wall. “Nobody ever listens. Not until it's too late.”

“I'll listen, Cullen. Tell me, I'll listen.”

“No.” She sobs in fear as she feels her nightdress tear apart in his hands. “I'll show you, instead. I'll show you what a mage is good for.”

It's not so terrible, in the end. He doesn't beat her, or choke her, any of the dark things she's feared from the first time he lost control back in the Gallows. Just fucks her, hard and brutal and dispassionate. It takes him longer to come when he's drunk, she knows, and for what feels like hours he pounds into her unresisting body. Her wrists are chafed and her bare knees ache, and all she can hear is the rhythmic slap of flesh and their ragged breathing echoing through the damp chambers, the rattle of the rusty iron ring against the wall.

“There,” is all he says when he's spent in her, before he falls asleep on her pallet.

_Kind. Good. Braver than you think._

She manoeuvres herself until she can lie awkwardly on her side.

_So good, so clever, so promising._

Cullen begins to snore lightly beneath her pile of blankets. The sweat cools on her skin and oh, Maker, it's cold. Perhaps with her feet she could drag a blanket towards her. But then she might wake him.

_I'll show you what a mage is good for._

She tries to sleep.

It's hard to tell in the dark of the cells, but it might be morning when he rolls over and wraps an arm around her. Lilla stiffens and his eyes open in bleary confusion.

“Lilla?” Cullen sits up. “What…? Maker, you're freezing. What's…?” He feels the strap around her wrists. “I did this. Shit, I…hold on.” Clumsily wrapping her in blankets, he works at his belt until her wrists are freed and she cries out in pain as the blood rushes back into her arms. “Shh.” Hands beneath the blankets, he's trying to rub some warmth back into her chilled skin. “Maker, what's _wrong_ with me, why would I…? I'm sorry, Lilla, I'm so sorry.”

“Didn't mean it,” she whispers through cracked lips. “Please, I'm cold.”

“I know.” He throws the blankets over them both and presses against her, and she remembers how she feared him last night but it feels so good to be warm again, she burrows into his embrace like he's the only safe thing in the world. “It's the lyrium. I'll get better, I swear, I'll make it up to you.”

“Let me help.”

“You do, little one. You're too good to me. I don't deserve…” He's wracked with sobs, and once more it's she comforting him, cradling him in her aching arms.

“Cullen,” she says finally, because if she doesn't ask now she doesn't know when it will be safe to again. “What happened during the Blight?”

Even now she's braced for that feral gleam in his eyes to return. But Cullen sighs, the weary sound of a broken man, and tells her of the fall of the Ferelden Circle. A boy, the same age she was when she met him, brutalised and tortured by blood mages and their unholy summonings. The visions and petty cruelties they inflicted on him until he couldn't tell reality from nightmare, fear from desire. She thinks she knows a little of how that feels.

Then, at his lowest point, _she_ came.

“I'd seen her a thousand times by then,” he recalls. “They dug into my mind and pulled out all my shameful fantasies. They knew my transgressions and my secret desires and they used them to break me.” He falters.

“Go on.”

“I said things…things that perhaps I should not have said. And I begged her to kill all the mages that were left. She laughed in my face.”

“And what happened in the end?”

“She prevailed, of course. The _Hero._ The maleficarum were killed and the surviving mages went on to help against the Blight.”

“So…” Lilla ventures nervously, “was she right?”

“In that, perhaps. But she was also wanton, and cruel, and self-serving. She played her part in the man I am today, almost as surely as Uldred did. But you…” Cullen strokes her warming body almost reverently. “You are not her. You're my salvation, Lilla. I need you. Please tell me you forgive me.”

“I do,” she whispers, and wants it to be true. But her body remembers.

 

When he's gone she surveys the damage. Her bruised hips and skinned knees will heal and the dull ache between her legs is nothing new. It's her wrists that hurt most. They've been chafed raw by their bindings, the skin rubbed away and broken in places.

Adan will have a salve. Or at least he'll be able to make her one, if she tells him it's for the Commander. But once outside his door she freezes, trembling. She can't face the anger of another human man, even Adan’s harmless annoyance - just the thought of it makes her chest tight.

“Can I help you?”

It's the apostate, Solas. She's thought herself beneath his notice, focused as he is on the Breach and the Herald’s mission, but now he's regarding her with his mild green eyes, waiting for a reply. She falters, toying with her sleeve, and his gaze sharpens as it falls to her wrist.

 _“Fenhedis,”_ he curses. “Come with me.”

Lilla looks into the dim interior of his cabin. “I shouldn't -”

“If it's being seen that concerns you, you should hurry.”

There's a soothing smell inside, elfroot and incense and dusty parchment. He ushers her to a chair and draws back her sleeves, his expression grim.

“It's not what it looks like -”

“I have seen this play out a thousand times,” he interrupts her in clipped tones. “It ends predictably. Stay or go, you are in danger.”

“I just need something to help it heal,” she says obstinately.

“You are capable of healing this yourself, are you not?”

“I…it's not allowed.”

There's the briefest flash of rage in that calm face, there and then gone. “Let me help, then.” His cool, dry hands grip her wrists and his eyes close, and she knows with a lurch of shame that he can sense all of her injuries, not just where his hands touch. Then a healing glow builds and there's the tingling, itching feeling of skin repairing itself.

“Thank you,” she whispers when he releases her.

“Do not thank me,” he snaps. “Make your plans. Do what you must to be safe from this. And if you think you’re protecting him, know this: if you come to harm, more than one person here will happily see him destroyed.”

 

Idris returns, a new solemnity behind his smile and a straggle of mages behind him. They take two days to filter into Haven: the cowed and the defiant, elves and humans, whole and Tranquil, elderly and children and all ages in between. From Ferelden, Orlais, distant Nevarra and Antiva, the Free Marches - even one or two faces she recognises from Kirkwall, glancing at Cullen with dull resignation.

The Commander, for his part, is preoccupied with his guilt. Gifts appear: soft winter clothes and scarves, blackberry wine that she drinks before she takes to bed to dull the fear. Because when she hears that heavy tread on the stairs, she can’t be sure which Cullen she’s going to face.

For now it’s the gentle, remorseful Cullen, the one that’s all soft kisses and insistence on her pleasure, who calls her by her name and not _whore._

“Do you remember Kirkwall?” he whispers, as if anything about the city of chains could be forgotten. “When most of the cleanup was done, and there were times we could lie in bed half the day, and I could tongue your little cunt until you were all flushed and pink and whimpering…” He settles between her legs. “When this is all over, we can have that again.”

 _Make your plans,_ says a distant voice and she pushes it to the back of her mind, lets herself float free as he brings her unravelled.

His guilt runs so deep that it’s the best he can do to grumble to the Herald about the risk of abominations in their ranks, until it’s on to more productive discussions. The mages need rest, Idris insists, before they can tackle the Breach.

“Rest,” Cullen gripes. “All they’ve ever known is rest.”

“They’ve been fugitives since the Circles dissolved,” the Herald points out. “Cooped up in Haven like livestock, living out in the elements before that. They weren’t prepared for this. Give them time to adjust while we work out our strategy - closing the Breach is not something we should attempt blindly.”

“None of us were prepared for this. We make do.” But Cullen lets the matter rest.

“Lilla!” Idris runs into her on his way from the requisitions table. “Will you join us for a drink?”

“Us?” She looks around him, and he laughs. Haunted as he’s seemed since Redcliffe, it’s good to hear that his laughter is still joyous and pure: forest streams and bare feet on grass, sunshine through leaves.

“You’ll see, if you come with me.”

A table in the corner is overflowing with the Herald’s party: Blackwall she recognises, and Varric, and the unmistakeable bulk of the Iron Bull. She catches the one-eyed wink he gives to Idris. Sera she knows more by reputation than sight, and of course she’s met Dorian in the war room. “Ah, the Commander’s little friend!” he exclaims. “Wherever did you find her, Herald? I was certain he hides her under his cloak when he doesn’t need her scribbling.”

“Glad you could join us, Mouse.” Varric nods to a chair. “We were just dealing. Want in?”

“I won’t, thank you.” She’s nervous of all the eyes upon her - the Bull notices, and launches into a story of the Chargers and a job for a wealthy Orlesian dowager. It’s filthy and improbable enough to drag everyone’s attention away, and he acknowledges her grateful smile with a tiny nod.

“Can I get you a drink?” Idris asks. “You don’t have anywhere to be for a while, do you?”

“I don’t think so.” The last she saw Cullen he was down in the practice yard putting the soldiers through their paces - that could go for hours. “Whatever you’re having will be fine.”

“I thought I’d try some of this Ferelden ale I keep hearing about.”

“Try it?” Sera overhears. “Pretty sure you _tried_ it that night you jumped off the pier and nearly broke your arse.”

“It was a nice night for a swim,” he replies with a grin. “Was that ale? Perhaps I’d better have wine instead.”

“Hope you brought an icepick and a change of clothes, then.”

“Anything is fine, really,” Lilla assures him.

She sits with half an ear on the conversation, watching him lope easily to the bar and seeing the tavern keeper blush and giggle before he’s even spoken. When he comes back he sits two empty glasses and a bottle on the table between them.

“I don’t know how much you want, so go ahead and pour your own.”

His own pour is generous, she notices. “Was Redcliffe very bad?”

“Oh.” He looks down with a smile, a little abashed at having drained half his glass. “I suppose the short answer is yes.”

“Would it help to talk about it?”

“I don’t know.” He nods to Dorian. “It helps to have someone who was there to see what I saw. But if you wanted to hear about it, I’d welcome the company.” His fingers tighten around his glass. “But not yet. Not here.”

“What’s not here?” Sera demands, not stopping to hear the answer. “So you’re a mage, yeah?”

There’s little point in pretending, now it’s common knowledge. “Yes.”

“You don’t seem too scary.” The rogue dismisses her and concentrates on her cards.

“So, Mouse, I heard you’ve taken up residence in the dungeons,” Varric says. “Homesick for the Gallows, were you?”

“Varric,” Bull says warningly, seeing her face go pale. “You don’t have to say everything that comes into your head. You’re not Sera.”

“Heard that!”

“Are you alright?” Idris asks quietly.

“I’m fine.” Lilla smiles, though it feels like her face might crack. “It’s warm in here, that’s all.” Her hands shake as she pours her drink. This, this is why she avoids people. But his fingers are warm and steadying over hers.

“Let me do that,” he offers, “and you can tell me when to stop." He pours. "No? How about now? I could ask them to fetch a bigger glass…?”

“That’s enough,” she says, laughing, and his dark eyes twinkle.

“If I say I like seeing you smile, you won’t stop, will you?”

“It seems like that would be cruel of me.” She sips her wine. “What are they playing?”

“I have no idea, but they seem to be enjoying themselves.” And they do, surprisingly for such an odd collection of people. Even Blackwall isn’t so gruff beneath the surface, and although the Qunari and the Tevinter rib each other mercilessly there’s no sense of violence about to break out. Is this what the world could be, if people took the time to know each other? Time flows easily and she’s content to be lost in the wash of conversation, as outside the sky darkens to a dull green glow.

“The mages seem to be settling in,” she observes.

“It’s been a stretch to accommodate and feed them all. Even a month ago we couldn’t have managed it. But now…”

“It’s impressive,” she says. “What you’ve built here, and in the Hinterlands.”

“You helped.”

“No.” She ducks her head behind the curtain of her hair. “I just take notes.”

“Don’t be modest. Without you, I’m not sure there’d be a Commander.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing improper,” he reassures her. “Just that you seem to give him a great deal of support. I didn’t mean...I’m sorry if I offended. I know how people gossip.”

Lilla bites her lip. People _do_ gossip, and here she is sharing a drink with the Herald in the middle of the tavern. “I should go.”

“Please stay,” he begs. “Just a little while longer. It’s so hard to find time to talk to you.”

“Perhaps that’s not a bad thing.” She sees hurt darken his eyes before she turns away. And then she sees Cullen, a broad, glowering presence in the open doorway. “I need to go,” she says hurriedly. “Thank you for the drink.”

The Herald’s companions look confused, except for Varric who shakes his head. “Run off back to your trap, Mouse,” he mutters under his breath.

“I’m sorry,” she babbles to Cullen. “Did you need me?”

“Come with me.” He turns on his heel, and she doesn’t dare look behind her as she follows him out of the tavern.

He’s silent as they make their way to his tent. She fights the urge to fill that quiet with questions, or justifications, waiting until the flap is closed behind him and he turns to her, his face unreadable in the dim light.

“Do you think this is suitable conduct?” he asks quietly. “Drinking and gambling, in plain sight of the Inquisition’s followers?”

“I was just watching.”

“Oh?” His lip curls up unpleasantly. “You weren't drinking, then?”

“I was, that's not what I…” It's not worth trying to defend herself, she knows, but a sense of injustice compels her. “The Herald asked me to join them.”

“What else would you do for the Herald?” Cullen pulls her close, his voice low and rough. “If he asked you to? Would you let him kiss you? Touch you? Fuck you?”

“No.”

“He's a handsome man. Don't tell me you haven't thought about it.” He's tugging at her clothing, loosening ties and undoing buttons. “The sweet things he'd whisper in your ear. What couldn't he give you, the Herald of Andraste…”

“I wouldn't.”

“You're wet just at the thought of it, aren't you?” he breathes, kissing his way down her collarbone. “He'd slide inside your little elvish cunt just like butter.”

“Cullen.” She shudders when she touches his belt. Tugs it loose and throws it in the corner like a biting snake, because suddenly she can't bear the thought of him giving her pleasure with those rough hands, that cruel tongue. So instead she wraps her hand tight around his shaft and hears him gasp. “There's only you. Just you.” His eyes widen as she walks him back into the single chair and kneels before him. “Do you believe me?”

The message is clear: what happens next depends on his answer. It's a tiny shift of power in her favour - fragile, temporary but nonetheless real. And to her relief, he accepts it. “Yes.”

She takes the head of his cock into her mouth and he groans. Swirls her tongue over the slit and around, feeling the rest of his length stiffening in her hand.

“You're mine,” he groans, taking a fistful of her hair in his gloved hand. She hums her assent, taking him deeper, her hand pumping at what her mouth can't reach. “Mine…fuck, you feel so good.”

She knows what it takes to bring him undone, licking and stroking and hollowing her cheeks; knows the moment he'll take over, thrusting into her mouth and driving her all the way down his shaft until he spills down the back of her throat with a cry almost of anguish. He's too dazed in the aftermath to recall his jealousy.

“You're a good girl,” he says, stroking her hair. “You know what I need.”

“How is your head?” She climbs up to settle in his lap and rests a hand on his clammy brow.

His eyes close. “No better. Worse. Some days I'm not sure I'm fit to lead.”

“Who do you trust to keep an eye on you?” she asks, stroking his curls. “Tell you if you need to take a rest, or if you're being too hard on yourself?”

“Cassandra,” he answers after a pause.

“You should tell her,” she says softly. “She'll understand better than anyone what you're going through.”

Cullen kisses the inside of her wrist. “I'll tell her.”

 

The day finally arrives when the mages, led by Idris, make their way up to the temple ruins to seal the Breach. Lilla is among those left behind, trying to go about their daily tasks with one eye watching the skies for a change.

“Will we know if it’s worked?” someone asks.

“We knew when it appeared, didn’t we? ‘Course we’ll know.”

When it comes it’s less dramatic than the opening of the Breach, but still spectacular. There’s a great bolt of green light from mountaintop to sky, a boom that rattles windows in the Chantry.

“Is it closed? There’s still something there.”

“They did it. They bloody did it.”

“The Herald did it. Blessed Andraste, we’re saved!”

A cheer goes up, beginning raggedly and growing stronger. “The Herald!” people cry. “The Inquisition!” There’s hugging, people weeping openly.

Lilla is one of the few who watch the mountainside, waiting for the Herald’s safe return.

 

It's a celebration such as Haven has never seen. There's music, dancing, drinking…so much drinking. She makes herself small in a corner, watching it all with a faint smile.

“Got the night off?” Idris has approached in his usual silent fashion, helped by the noisy celebrations. Lilla smiles up at him.

“I don’t think Cullen quite believes it’s over. But he’s got no use for me right now, so…” She shrugs. “How about you?”

“Oh, I definitely have the night off.” He waves a bottle at her. “Only just getting started, but if you see me run for the lake…”

“I’ll take notes for Varric.” It’s not difficult to make the Herald smile, but it still gives her a warm feeling when she can. “I meant, do you believe it’s over?”

“Really over? No. There’s still the Venatori, this ‘Elder One’, whatever it is, the templars. I just hope whatever we did today stops the future I saw.”

“There were demons.” This much, she knows. “No Breach must mean less demons, right?”

“We can hope it’s that simple. But this is talk for tomorrow, not tonight...will you walk with me?” He extends a hand. “Just into the woods a little way. All this noise upsets my Dalish sensibilities.”

“You do love to feed the gossip, don’t you?” But lightheaded with the prospect of victory, she accepts his hand. “For the record, you don’t need to be Dalish to find this too much.”

“Delicate creatures, aren’t we?” Idris holds back the branches for her as they wander between the trees.

“What will you do if it is over? Go back to the Free Marches?”

“I don’t know.” At a small clearing he takes his coat off and sits next to it in the snow.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Freezing, most of the time, but that shouldn’t keep me from being polite.” He gestures for her to sit, and reluctantly she settles on top of the folded coat. “When you live out in the open, you get very used to accepting the temperature for what it is.” As if to demonstrate he lies on his back in the snow, hands crossed behind his head as if it’s a sunny riverbank.

“Is that why you don’t want to go back?” she teases. “You’ve gotten too used to walls, and a roof over your head, and boots on your feet.”

“Perhaps that’s part of it,” he laughs. “But it’s more...there’s so much world out there, you know. Not all of it pretty, or clean, but...different.”

“There’s plenty in the Marches that’s unclean. Have you ever been to Kirkwall?”

“I’m sure there are things in Kirkwall to admire,” he says, and she can feel two points of pink heat forming on her cheeks. Cullen was right, she thinks with a sideways look. He is a handsome man. Beautiful, perhaps would be the better word.

“Did you leave anyone behind?” she asks in an attempt to change the subject.

“Apart from my entire clan, you mean?”

“Anyone…” Maker, he’s going to force her to spell it out. “Girls.”

“There are girls in Clan Lavellan, yes,” he says teasingly. “If you’re asking if any of them are weeping over me, probably not. There was no one girl.”

Lilla raises her eyebrows. “You’re saying there were many girls?”

“Many would be putting it too strongly. But I was my clan’s First. I didn’t have to work so hard to prove myself as the others did.” He looks at her with a cheeky grin. “I like to think I proved myself in other ways, though.”

“Like magic?”

“I don’t recall any of them described it as magic, no, but close…”

“Oh.” She claps a hand over her eyes. “You’re awful.”

“The word _awful_ was definitely never used, I assure you.”

“Stop!” She sneaks a mortified glance at his face, sees his eyes sparkling with contained laughter.

“I am sorry,” he says, propping himself up on one elbow. “I like to see you blush, I can’t help it.” The longer he looks at her, the graver his face gets, until he finally says, “I’m sorry about Varric the other night. He didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No,” she says shortly. “He did.”

“Perhaps,” he concedes, “but not from spite. He has these ideas, about you and…”

“Cullen.”

“Yes.” Idris looks away from her to trace idle patterns in the snow. “I told him that you said the two of you aren’t together.”

Lilla draws her knees up under her chin, feeling sick dread curling in the pit of her stomach. “And he said?”

“That I was asking the wrong questions.”

“Did you have a different question for me, then?”

“No.” He grimaces in discomfort. “Did you have a different answer?”

It is quiet in the forest. Too quiet. Lilla looks up at the trees, the dim glow that remains from the Breach shining through the bare branches.

“He fucks me,” she says finally. “Is that what you want to know?”

Idris’s eyes close, his lips pressed tightly together. “And is that something you want?”

“Sometimes.” _Traitor,_ she thinks. _Whore._

“Sometimes?”

“Most of the time.”

She can’t bear to see his pity. Her jaw is clenched tightly against tears, her fingernails digging hard into her palms.

“That’s not enough, Lilla. Most of the time...that’s not how it should be.”

Angrily, she stands. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Does he hurt you?”

“He doesn’t hit me, if that’s what you mean.”

“I meant what I asked, does he _hurt_ you?” He follows her to his feet, careful not to press too close, and his kindness is infuriating.

“People hurt people,” she snaps. “It’s life.”

“I wouldn’t.”

She dares to look in his face, and the open sincerity she sees there burns her, threatens to choke her because more than anything, she believes it. And there’s nothing she can do but throw it back in his face.

“There we have it. What you really want. Poor, abused, Lilla, if only I could fuck her pain away.”

With that she walks away, because to give him a chance to respond would give her a chance to apologise, change her mind, fall into his arms and be just the kind of treacherous whore Cullen always says she is.

If he calls anything after her, she doesn’t hear it. Doesn’t hear anything until she’s nearly back to the Chantry, and then it’s bells. Long, loud, bells, the signal that they’re under attack.


	7. Skyhold part I

Once the injured begin to pour into the Chantry they don't stop. It's hard to send the walking wounded to the side to wait, but there are sword wounds, crushed limbs and cracked skulls, people carried in with burns covering half their bodies.

“Leave him for the moment,” Solas tells an apprentice as she crouches by a screaming man.

“But -”

“He's conscious,” the mage explains curtly. “His lungs and heart are functioning. We'll come back to him as soon as possible, but focus on the ones that aren't screaming. They need us first.” He spots Lilla and his eyes narrow. “Are you going to help?”

“I'm helping,” she snaps, winding a length of bandage around a child’s slashed ribs.

Solas shakes his head. “Anyone could do that. I'm asking if you're going to _help.”_

“You know I can't.”

“I know you can.” He stands up in one fluid movement. “Where is the Commander?”

“Solas, please -”

“He was fighting by the tavern, Messere.”

“I need you to take him a message. Tell him we need more healers. Tell him we need all the help we can get.” He takes the young scout by the shoulder. “ _All_ the help we can get. That part is important. You understand?”

“Yes, Messere. All the help we can get.”

The girl dashes off and Solas glares at Lilla. “Find someone to take over from you there. I need you ready by the time she gets back.”

“He won't say yes.” She tears off the end of the bandage and tucks it neatly. “I've tried.”

“This - ” he gestures angrily at the carnage around them, “is more important than his need for control.”

“That's not -”

“I don't care. Find someone else to bandage.”

The scout arrives back before long, breathless and shaken. “He says it's on your head if anything goes wrong, Messere.”

“Excellent, thank you.” Solas claps his hands. “Lissa, over here. This man's liver is ruptured and I need you to repair it.”

“I don't know how to do that!” she protests.

“It's easy,” he says as he crouches to tend to a burned mage. “Now go.”

It's one patient after another, and when she doesn't feel her mana flagging she suspects that Solas is lending her his strength. But if he's struggling at all it doesn't show.

He can't shield her from the emotional toll when another patient slips away before she can save them, or keep her from worrying about what's happening outside. The worst of it started when the dragon hit, and since then Flissa has stumbled in saying the Herald saved her, but was that a few minutes ago, or an hour? There's blood up to her elbows and she doesn't know if Idris, or Cullen, or anyone has survived.

“We're evacuating.” The word filters through to the back of the Chantry. “Now.”

“But the wounded…” she protests.

“They'll have to be carried. It's that or we all die here.”

She looks at the dead, lying shrouded in neat rows by the wall. “They'll have no pyre.”

“Haven will be their pyre, _da’len.”_ Solas tugs gently at her wrist. “We must go.”

The next moment Cullen appears at her side, grim-faced and spattered with blood. “Go!” he shouts. “Everybody out, now!”

“Where's the Herald?” somebody asks, and Lilla’s stomach drops at the look in his eyes.

“He's alive.”

_Oh, thank the Maker._

“He'll buy us time to escape.”

“Wait...how?” She clutches urgently at his arm. “Is he alone out there?”

Scowling, he shakes her off. “Not alone. Now run with everyone else, unless you want his efforts to be for nothing. I'll be behind you.”

She was so cruel to him. If only she hadn't been so cruel. Eyes swimming with tears, she nearly collides with a tall boy in a floppy hat.

“He knows why,” the boy says in a sleepy voice. “He loves you more for it. Braver than you think.”

“What?” But the push of bodies carries her forward and the boy with the watery blue eyes is lost from sight.

 

“He's found!”

The cry goes up, but it seems too good to be true until she sees Cullen stagger into camp with the still body of the Herald cradled in his arms. “Make way!” he bellows. “For Andraste’s sake, make way. He's alive. That's all you need to know for now.”

Lilla doesn't want to join the desperate crowd gathered around the infirmary tent, but she's on the way back to the fringes of camp when she hears an irritable “Lilla! Where are you going?”

“I -”

“Solas says he needs you,” Cullen says abruptly, and turns back to the tent without waiting for an answer.

Inside, Idris is a motionless form beneath the blankets. “It is not the severity of the Herald’s injuries that gives me pause, but the scope," Solas is saying. "Frostbite, hypothermia, dehydration, concussion, abrasions, several broken ribs and collarbone, a dislocated shoulder, burns, smoke in his lungs…”

“He jumped into a burning hut to rescue Seggrit,” Cassandra explains. “I am surprised he made it out. Truly, the Maker was watching over him.”

“Maker or no, now it is we who must watch over him.” Solas spies her in the corner. “Lilla, come. The rest of you leave us in peace. Station a scout by the entrance in case we need anything, but for now we need time and quiet.”

The advisors and Cassandra file out of the tent, Lilla jumping in surprise as Cullen gives her shoulder a squeeze on the way past. “You've done well,” he murmurs.

Can he really be praising her use of magic? It might well be the strangest thing that's happened since the Breach was sealed.

“He asked for you,” Solas tells her, “but he's asleep now. It's for the best. I did not overstate his injuries.”

“Is he in danger?” He looks so pale beneath his olive skin, dark circles beneath his eyes and his lips tinged faintly blue.

“Not with our help. Alone, he might have died within the hour. As it is, our only challenge is to minimise the long-term damage. I have begun to redirect the blood flow back into his extremities and with luck he will not lose toes or fingers. I will support his system and lend you energy while you heal his burns and help his bones knit.”

It had not been her imagination, then, back in the Chantry. “Why me?”

“Two reasons. You have a unique talent for healing. In fact, I believe that perhaps you are aided by a spirit.” As he talks, Solas keeps a steady finger on the sleeping Herald’s pulse. “It is unusual for a healer to be chosen thus without first seeking the spirit's aid, but not unheard of. They rarely seek to cross the veil.”

“A spirit?” Her fingers itch to heal, to soothe the raw, burnt and frozen skin she can sense beneath the blankets. But she hesitates. “Not a demon?”

Solas smiles as if indulging the ignorant questions of a child. “Demons have little interest in healing. Healers, on the other hand, interest them greatly.”

His words are not reassuring. “So I am in danger.”

“Not if you are vigilant,” he says, and there's a flash of pity in his green eyes. “And vigilance, I think, is something you know well. Will you proceed?”

Lilla lays her hands on the blankets; there's no warmth to be felt. But she can feel the sluggish tissues respond as she probes deeper. “What was the second reason?”

Solas nods to the Herald with a sly smile. “I already told you: he asked for you.”

They fall silent for a while, Lilla concentrating on guiding the fluid beneath Idris’s burnt skin back into his circulation. How it must have hurt when the fire touched him. Was it agony when the weeping burn froze to his shirt, or was he too numb to feel anything by then?

“Did you mention this to Cullen?” she asks to distract herself. “About the spirit?”

“I see no need to bother the Commander with such small details, do you? Look, the colour is returning to his face.”

It's another candle before she dares to soak the cloth from their patient's skin, relieved to find it pink and whole, then quickly embarrassed to be staring at the Herald’s naked torso. Another candle, spent coaxing fractured bones back together, before she sees his fingers twitch.

“I can't think of a better sight to wake up to,” he croaks. “Not you, Solas, I am sorry.” A cough shakes his body. “My ribs don't hurt,” he says wonderingly.

“Thank your friend here.”

“My friend?” He moves his fingers again and she takes them between her hands. “Is that what you are?”

“If you still want me to be.”

“I want…” His eyes focus on her face, wide and dark and solemn. “I want…” Dark lashes flutter closed and his breathing becomes regular again.

“Sleeping.” Solas tucks the blankets around his shoulders. “His body will do most of the work now. The cough will linger a few days while he clears the smoke from his airways, but it's a sign that his lungs are functioning as they should.” He glances at their intertwined fingers. “You should rest too, da’len. You've more than earned it.” Gently he withdraws his mana from hers and she feels the fatigue that should have overcome her hours ago. “I will leave you now.”

She should find her tent. But she feels Idris’s hand, soft and alive in hers, and she can't help but rest her head near his shoulder. Just for a moment, then she'll find her way to her tent. Just for a moment.

 

There's little chance to talk in the days that follow. First the climb through the Frostbacks, all her resting moments spent tending to the injuries that still linger from Haven. Then the miracle that is Skyhold, and the work that goes into making it liveable and defensible.

She joins the cheering crowd on the day Idris is made Inquisitor, and tears form in her eyes when he holds the great sword aloft and swears to fight for order in Thedas.

It's Cullen she fights for. His meagre ration of lyrium was left behind in Haven, and he refuses to secure any more. “It's done,” he insists. “I will not look back.” Cassandra monitors his work, but only Lilla sees his rages, his moments of silent despair, the nightmares he wakens from in insatiable lust.

For they're sharing quarters again now, even if she must climb down before dawn to her rickety cot in his office. Her bed must be kept neat, to the Commander's standards, but not so neat that it seems she isn't sleeping there. Upstairs and out of sight, it seems the bed is no sooner made than they're unmaking it again, Cullen sating himself on her with an appetite that never seems to flag.

“I need you,” he groans into her hair, their bodies tangled in the sheets that smell of sweat and sex and desperation. “I can't be whole without you, I can't do this without you.”

She's his other addiction, and without the lyrium he throws himself into her with renewed frenzy.

It helps that Idris is often away in those early days. Hawke, of all people, has him following some Grey Warden conspiracy to far corners of Ferelden and Orlais, and in her free moments Lilla wanders his fortress and pictures the places he's been. She helps to grow plants in the courtyard, scrubs down the infirmary with herb-scented water and brushes Dennet’s kind-eyed horses.

“What do you do with your time off?” Cullen asks as she sprawls naked across his chest, and she answers simply, “I help.”

“Maker,” he huffs, “you're beginning to sound like that spirit boy,” and she shivers.

That's not all she does. She sits on the sunny ground outside the tavern, listening to the minstrel sing; sometimes Cole sits near her, hiding in the shade of his floppy hat. She watches from the balcony as Solas’s frescoes take shape, forming a shy friendship with Dorian over a shared love of reading. And she explores the deep recesses of Skyhold, the dungeons and cellars and the deserted underground library.

She's never had so many books at her fingertips. And with nobody there to see what she reads, she absorbs whatever she can: history, and magic, and lore, and tomes on healing with precise, detailed drawings. Careful not to steal too many hours at a time, she reads until her eyes ache and her head swims with knowledge.

“I didn't know anybody else cared for this place.”

It's a dull afternoon and Cullen has dismissed her while he checks the outer fortifications. She turns toward the familiar voice, horrified to be caught lounging irreverently on the rug. “You're back! I didn't know - I mean, hello.”

“Hello yourself.” He looks well, tanned a shade darker from the Western Front and fresh from the bathhouse, if his damp hair and the faint smell of crystal grace are anything to go by. “I tried to avoid the fanfare. It's been…well, you know. Giants and darkspawn, demons, a dragon. You'll hear all about it at the war table.” His eyes roam about the room. “You've cleared away the cobwebs. I quite liked those. They added a touch of…”

“Creepiness?”

“Is that the word?” He laughs. She's missed that laugh more than she could say. “It's good to see you. Cullen is treating you well?”

“I'm not a horse,” she snaps, immediately defensive. “I don't need to be treated in any way, I can take care of myself.”

“ _Fenedhis,_ I've put my foot in it again, haven't I?” He scratches behind one elegant ear, quirking his mouth with embarrassment. “I've been meaning to apologise for Haven. I should not have put you on the spot like that.”

“You, apologise?” she asks in disbelief. “I was horrible. I'm being horrible again now, and you're just trying to…”

“Fuck your pain away? It's an image, I'll grant you that.” It takes her a moment to realise he's making fun of himself, not her. “Too much time spent playing the hero. I must have let it go to my head.” He grins lopsidedly. “I mean I'm not opposed to the idea but you're right, it's insultingly simplistic.”

“I didn't mean to hurt your feelings,” she says, although she's not sure that was true at the time.

“I didn't mean to hurt yours either,” he says. “But here we are.” He settles into the winged chair with a sigh. “I want to be someone you can talk to, Lilla. When you decide to talk, not when you're backed into a corner. And without fearing any ulterior motive of mine.”

Lilla closes her book. “Are you saying there's no ulterior motive?”

“I could say that,” he says. “But I'd be lying. You know I like you, and there are times when I let myself hope…but it's not for me to tell you how you should feel. Wishing I could make you happy isn't the same as being able to. And saying I wouldn't hurt you - well, it did hurt you, didn't it?”

She feels a lump growing in her throat, and she avoids his eyes. Those dark, beautiful eyes that see her. “You've been thinking about this.”

“A desert gives you time to think. Also sunburn, and sandfly bites, and sand in your teeth…it's true! After the dragon fight there was sand _everywhere_ …I only just managed to clean the last of it out of my ears.”

Lilla shakes her head at him and he chuckles. “There, I made you smile again. That's all I want.”

 

It's not good news that they've brought from the west. Cullen’s face is thunderous as he listens to what is known of the Grey Wardens’ plot.

“Stupidity,” he rails. “This makes no sense on any level! What are they thinking?”

She tends to agree. So the Wardens are afraid of dying - who isn't? Wasn't death a possibility when they signed up to fight the darkspawn? For one or even a group of them to be seized by this madness is one thing, but seemingly most of the order?

Now there's a siege to plan and there's no time for gardens or horses or books. It's all supplies and marching routes and names, endless lists of names of soldiers who may never return. At night Cullen almost weeps from the pain in his head but he won't let her do more than put cooling cloths on his brow and brew bitter teas of willowbark and elfroot.

His mail arrives one morning while he's still upstairs in bed, sleeping uncharacteristically late. It's not one of her duties to sort his correspondence but one envelope falls from the pile the scout hands to her, and when she bends to pick it up the handwriting catches her eye. Addressed to her, not Cullen, care of the Inquisition. 

Is he asleep? She sits down on the creaky cot, hoping the noise will mask the sound of the envelope tearing open. The paper inside is coarse and the looping handwriting as familiar to her as her own.

 

_Lil,_

_I wish you would answer my letters. I can only write to you care of the Inquisition but when I went to see their agent in Hightown, she assured me they should be reaching you. Why don't you let us know how you are? I don't care if it's unhappy news - well obviously I care, I want you to be happy, but if that's not the case at least I want to know you're alive. Your name wasn't among the dead at the Conclave and Merrill didn't think you'd died in Haven, but I've asked her to write to Varric just to check. Until then I'll just keep writing and writing and hope there's been some mistake and you're not choosing to leave us in the dark, fearing the worst._

_Your sister, Mira._

 

Lilla barely hears the creak of the ladder as Cullen descends.

“What's that?” he asks gruffly.

She looks up at him, surprised how level her voice is. “Are you sure you don't know?”

“Why would I know?” He reaches out impatiently. “Give it to me.”

“I will not,” she says quietly.

“I'm not in the mood for your games.” Cullen leans in to snatch the paper from her hands and she quickly hides it behind her back.

“ _My_ games? How many letters has my sister sent me? When did it start? Haven? Before? How long have you been keeping her from me?”

He pinches his nose. “You're hysterical. I can't -”

“I don't give a single fuck about your headaches right now, Cullen.” She's on her feet now, quivering with rage. “Answer me!”

“I stopped giving them to you before we left Kirkwall. They were a distraction.”

“She's my family! What did you do with them?”

Cullen’s jaw clenches. “I burned them.”

She wants to hit him. To fly at him and smack that self-righteous look from his face. But she forces a deep breath. “Why would you burn them?”

“I am all you need!” he shouts. “I will not share you!”

Lilla is too angry now to be scared. “No, you won't. I'm leaving.”

“Leaving?” he sneers. “You have nowhere to go.”

“I'll go back to Kirkwall. I'll find a way.” She steels herself, bracing for retaliation. “I want my wages.”

The savage burst of temper doesn't come. There's a change in Cullen as he realises she's serious: the fight goes out of him and all that remains is a broken resignation.

“You'll get your wages, whore," he says bitterly. "Just don't expect my help. If you leave here, you're on your own. I've done enough for you.”

“You've done enough," she retaliates. "That much we can agree on.”

There doesn't seem to be any more to say. It doesn't feel like freedom, doesn't feel like anything but pain and betrayal.

 

It will take a day for Cullen to procure her wages from the Inquisition treasury. In truth she has no idea how much she is owed by now; but oddly, despite his years of deception she trusts him to be honest in this.

She'll write back to Mira. Not now, perhaps from a roadside inn when her thoughts are less scattered. And that will have to be it until she can make it to Kirkwall and see her in person. How will she explain the past years of silence?

Most of that day is spent huddled in a corner of the secret library, weeping sporadically until the tears won't come any more. When there's a tread outside the door she stiffens - but it's too light, she thinks, too careful to be Cullen. 

“Lilla?”

She unravels stiff limbs and gets to her feet. “I'm here.”

Idris looks relieved to see her. “Nobody seemed to know where you were.”

“You did.”

“I took a guess.” He approaches on quiet feet. “We're leaving to close a rift. Just one, in the foothills. It shouldn't take more than a day to get there and back, but I didn't want to go without saying goodbye.”

She feels a twinge of guilt: isn't that just what she'd been planning to do? “When are you leaving?”

“Not for a little while.”

They sit on the edge of the desk, fingers nearly touching. “You were right, you know.”

“Stranger things have happened. Wait…right about what?”

“Cullen. It's not enough. Or too much, if that makes sense.”

“It makes a lot of sense.” He looks down at their hands - he could touch her almost without moving. “So what now?”

“Now…” She lets her head fall back, looking up at the dark ceiling beams. “We let each other go.”

“Will he let you go?” There's a tension in the air. Not like the fear before Cullen flies into one of his tempers, or the sullen silences that follow. No, this is more like the slow build of pressure before one of the storms that hit Kirkwall in the summer: tingling, and fresh, and carrying the promise of quenching rain and growth and life to come. 

“He already has.” Her fingers brush his, and he turns his face towards her.

“Lilla,” he murmurs. “ _Vhenan,_ are you sure…?”

Her lips slant across his and it's soft and tender and bittersweet, everything she imagined. Long fingers cup the side of her neck and the tip of his tongue flicks lightly against the seam of her lips, and she opens to him like the parched earth to water. There's an innocence to this that's always been missing with Cullen: there's nothing demanding in his touch, and when she presses up against him he's the one to break away.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” It's not reluctance on his part. His eyes are dark with desire and his thumb strokes her neck, up and down, perilously close to the lobe of her ear.

“Are you?” she breathes. “You said you just wanted to make me smile.”

He tugs her gently to face him, his hands sliding under her shirt to rest against her bare back. “I do want that,” he replies, landing butterfly-soft kisses on her neck. “I just wasn't specific about _how.”_

She hides her smile in his dark hair. “How, then?”

 _“Juveran na su tarasyl,”_ Idris murmurs. She doesn't understand the words but something in the cadence speaks to her, makes her belly flutter in anticipation.

“What does it mean?”

“I will take you to the sky.” His fingers rest on the top button of her shirt and there's an unspoken question in the tilt of his lips.

“Show me,” she whispers.

His every move is careful, deliberate; pausing before he parts her shirt, before he bends to kiss between her small, high breasts, before he takes each taut pink nipple in turn between his lips. Giving her the chance to ask him to stop. But stopping is the last thing on Lilla's mind. Her fingers dig hard into the edge of the desk as he kisses and licks down the length of her torso, until he tugs her free and eases her to the floor. At last he kneels between her legs with his nimble fingers at the laces of her trousers.

“Lilla,” he says, her name a caress from his lips. “I need to know you want this as much as I do.”

“More,” she sighs and he laughs as he shakes his head.

“Not possible.”

Soft lips press gently at the top of her mound, on the insides of her thighs, and the first tender touch of his tongue between her legs makes her back arch slowly. He's looking up at her face as he pleasures her, mischievous dark eyes holding hers while his tongue darts and teases at her sensitive flesh, and there's something about that that makes her laugh with pure joy, even as he presses his clever mouth to her swollen pearl and bliss overtakes every nerve in her body. In truth, it does feel a bit like flying.

"Idris," she gasps and he finds her hands with his own and squeezes them. His lips are soft against her wet folds, easing her trembling body down slowly from her peak. 

"Let me do something for you," she offers breathlessly when he lays his head on the rug beside hers. Idris laughs and shakes his head.

"You just did, _ma’vhenan._ But when we have time you can do more, if that's what you wish." He kisses the valley between her breasts one last time before he gently refastens her buttons. "That was perfect, as long as you don't regret it."

“Less than anything I've ever done,” she says truthfully. Less than what she's about to do, but there's no sense in ruining this moment. Let them have this, their little moment of joy in the chaos. He'll understand when he returns to find her gone. Please, she prays, let him understand.


	8. Skyhold part II

It takes Lilla no time at all to pack. And even these few possessions, she realises with a lurch, came from Cullen.

No. Not from him. From the wages that he kept from her. Sovereigns in a pouch and a neat stack of papers that can be exchanged for coin in any city in Ferelden or the Free Marches, wrapped in a canvas bundle at the bottom of her pack.

She found it on the foot of her cot this morning. Cullen's nowhere to be seen and in a way that makes it easier - after all they've been through it would seem wrong to leave without a word, and there's not a thing she can think of to say to him today.

Nobody comes or goes from Skyhold unnoticed, but the guards are only interested in questioning those on the way in. She reminds herself that she's doing nothing wrong: this isn't the Gallows and Cullen has no interest in stopping her. Nevertheless, she puts her hood up as she crosses the drawbridge.

It's more than half a day's walk to the nearest inn, built since the Inquisition came to Skyhold to service traffic along the newly-constructed road. That same road should take her down to the highway and then on to Ferelden, where the money in her pack should be more than enough to buy her passage from Highever back to Kirkwall.

Even her well-made boots begin to chafe after a few hours of walking. It's cold but clear in the mountains and the road is quiet - she makes way for a carriage at one point, a cluster of masked nobles glancing indifferently from the window. A patrol returning to Skyhold passes in the other direction, one or two of the soldiers glancing at her in surprised recognition. One of them, a young man she helped patch up after Haven, gives her a solemn salute as he passes.

Then it's just the chill wind for company.

She wonders in which direction the rift was, if they're having much trouble closing it. Idris took the Iron Bull, Varric and Dorian - between the four of them they should be able to handle whatever horrors fall out of the Fade. She wishes they had a better healer with them. She wonders what he'll think, when he returns and finds her gone.

In the early afternoon the glare of sun on snow is almost blinding. By her reckoning it's still a few more hours to the inn, and there's little on this winding stretch of road but rocks and ice.

So it's a shock when she rounds a corner and encounters the bandits.

For bandits they must be. They're too unkempt for merchants, too well-armed for refugees. It would be easy to mistake the seven scruffy men for mercenaries but no band worth hiring would carry such shoddy, nicked and rusted weapons. Still, to a lone and unarmed elf a sword is a sword, and they know it as well as she does.

“What's in your pack, girl?” It's a solid man who speaks first. His eyes are narrow and bloodshot, and the way he looks her up and down makes her queasy.

“Just clothes,” she answers quickly.

“Clothes, _ser,”_ one of his companions corrects her. “Show some respect, knife-ear.”

“No coin, then? I find that hard to believe.”

She can see that they're spreading out to flank her, and she wishes she knew more offensive magic than how to start a hearth fire. No, even then it would be foolish to fight. She's clearly outnumbered.

“Hand it over, elf.” Numbly she lets them take the pack from her hands and prays that perhaps, by some miracle, they won't find the little package holding all her savings. Then the man behind her grabs her arms and she knows the danger is greater than the loss of money.

The leader grasps at her with more force than necessary, showing a mouthful of yellow teeth when he finds the pouch of sovereigns at her waist. “We'll eat well tonight, boys!” he calls out. “Now what else have you got there?”

“Nothing else.”

“That's where you're wrong.” He gives a nod to the man holding her, who starts dragging her back off the road. “Find anything?”

His men have her pack open and are emptying the contents into the snow. “Not yet. Some pretty smalls. Wonder if she's wearing the same?”

“Let's find out,” the man says, and a sob catches in her throat. She's pushed into the grip of the leader and he throws her into a snowdrift, where her head strikes painfully against a buried rock. Her vision blurs: all she can see is the fuzzy silhouette of the bandit, following her down and beginning to tear at her clothes.

“Bank notes!” someone shouts. “Lots of ‘em!”

“Well done, boys.” But the leader’s focus isn't on money right now. “It'll be over quicker if you don't struggle, girl,” he grunts. “Me and my boys will have a go at you and then we'll be on our way. Don't scream and we won't cut your throat.”

“This is an Inquisition road,” she gasps. “A patrol could come by any-”

The back of his hand silences her. “Fuck the Inquisition,” he growls, fumbling at his belt. “Haven't seen hardly a man on this road. Don't think they're going to risk their skins for one knife-eared-”

There's a thwack and a gurgle, and whatever he was about to say is silenced by the bolt that protrudes from his neck. To her horror he lists forward onto her chest and she feels his hot blood soak through her clothing.

Chaos erupts among the bandits: she can hear the scrape of weapons drawn and the thunder of hooves.

“Kill ‘em all!”

“Are you stupid? Fuckin’ run!”

There's the clash of steel, a high, inhuman shriek that goes on and on until it's abruptly silenced. Amidst the carnage somebody lifts the body away from her - it's the Iron Bull, yanking his greataxe free from a bandit's chest before he bends to scoop her up.

“You OK? Any of that blood yours?”

“No.” She can see Dorian now atop his stallion, and Idris, his face still with fury as he fells an archer with lightning. And Cullen. Why is Cullen with them? You wouldn't guess his suffering from the way he fights, batting away the messy swipe of a greatsword before he takes the man down with a single thrust through the heart.

“Everyone alive?” Varric calls.

“Everyone who should be.” Bull turns to Cullen, his eye narrowing. “Where were you?”

Cullen gestures up the hill. “Back there. I heard the fighting.”

Varric’s gathering up her scattered belongings, including the bank notes that have blown loose from their wrapping. “The two of you were on your way somewhere, Curly?”

Cullen glares at the ground. “Not exactly. I heard she was heading this way on her own and I…followed to offer a safe escort.”

“On foot?”

“My horse is tied up around the bend.”

Bull still has her cradled in his arms like a child, and she's too shaken and tired to care. “So you heard fighting. You dismounted and tied up your horse, and came down here in time to help.”

The Commander bristles. “Look, I don't know what you're insinuating -”

“Are you hurt?” Idris asks Lilla. “Do you need a potion?”

She looks down at her blood-soaked clothing in shock. “No. That's not me.”

“Looks like a nasty blow to the head, boss.” Bull gently probes the top of her skull. “Not bleeding but could be a concussion.”

Varric holds up a shirt from amongst her things, a bit dirty from being trampled but in a better state than what she's wearing. “Do you want to change? You can get properly cleaned up when we get back…that's if you want to go back?”

Everyone looks at her expectantly, and she shuts her eyes. There's no sneaking away after this. There'll be questions, and recriminations. She buries her face against Bull's shoulder, wildly hoping that if she doesn't see them, they won't see her.

“We gotta get her back.” She feels Bull’s rumble through his chest. “This needs looking at. If she's got somewhere to go after that, we can make sure she gets there in one piece.” To Lilla, he speaks low and gentle. “You wanna change shirts? You'll feel better.”

Reluctantly she nods, and he sets her down carefully on a boulder. “Right, where's that shirt? Everyone give the girl some privacy. She's gonna need something warm to wear over this, that coat's a mess.” He looks pointedly at Cullen, who shrugs off his fur-trimmed cloak.

“This one's alive, Stretch.” Shielded behind Bull’s bulk, Lilla hears Idris manoeuvre his hart to Varric’s side.

“Can you talk?” he demands in the coldest tone she's ever heard from him. “What were you doing here?”

There's a wet cough from the bandit on the ground. “Just looking for gold. It's hard times.”

“Other people's gold,” he answers flatly.

“Nobles,” the man confirmed. “We was drinking up in the hills while we waited - Hop didn't think the knife-ear -  the girl would have much but he said we'd have some fun with her. I'm sorry, ser, it weren't my idea...mercy, please…”

“Gut wound,” Varric points out. “It's messy. This is past healing.”

No words are exchanged between the dwarf and the Inquisitor but she guesses a consensus has been reached, because there's the faint sound of a knife being drawn, a whimper from the bandit and then silence.

“Have we got everything?” Idris asks. “Fetch your mounts. We're going back to Skyhold.”

It's a tense journey back up the mountain. At first Cullen offers to have her ride with him but Bull growls “I've got her,” in a tone that brooks no argument. She's bundled up before him in Cullen's cloak and he gently shakes her awake each time she would drift into unconsciousness. “Sorry, kid,” he murmurs. “Sleep’s a bad idea just now.”

She catches Idris’s eyes, burning with questions. Nobody is paying much attention to Cullen for the moment but she senses a storm is brewing when they get back to Skyhold.

This is not what she wanted - weeks out from the siege of Adamant and she's driven a wedge between the Inquisitor and the Commander. Bull glances down and tugs the cloak up around her face, hiding her tears from the others. “Not your fault, kid,” he mutters. 

 

Mercifully, the infirmary is near empty when they reach Skyhold. That means there are as few witnesses as possible to Idris and Cullen's heated words.

“What did you do to her?” Idris demands, as though she's not right there.

“I didn't do a thing! She wanted to go home and see her family. Should I have kept her here against her will?”

“I thought you didn't know she was leaving?”

“I didn't know she was leaving right away,” Cullen blusters, “or of course I would have made sure she had a proper escort.”

“And I'm supposed to believe -”

“I don't care what you believe,” Cullen snaps. “She has had a shock, she needs rest. And quiet.”

“She can rest in my quarters.”

“I don't think so! She needs her own bed -”

“If you think I'm letting you go anywhere with her -”

“How dare you -”

“Stop,” she croaks. She's too tired for this, but she can't lie back and let two of the most important men in Thedas tear each other apart over her. “I'll go with Cullen.”

She's not sure what's worse, the grim triumph on Cullen's face or Idris's surprised hurt. “You can't mean…”

“I just want to sleep,” she insists. “Please.”

Cullen looks to the healer. “There's no concussion,” she says shortly. “I've brought the swelling down. There's no reason to keep her here.”

Idris is still looking at her in mute appeal. She wishes she could explain…but he would put her before the Inquisition, before the fate of Thedas itself. Now more than ever, they must be united.

“I'll be fine,” she tells him. Then closes her eyes, so she doesn't have to see the confusion in his.

Cullen insists on carrying her back to his quarters. She gives a small sound of protest when he begins to carefully climb the ladder.

“I'll sleep in your bed,” he says gruffly. “You need to be comfortable.” There's nothing sexual in the way he undresses her and cleans the dried blood from her skin. When he's done and she's dressed in a clean nightshirt, he strips the bed with military efficiency and puts down fresh sheets.

“Do you need to eat?”

She shakes her head.

“I'll send up food later. There's water on the nightstand.”

“Cullen,” she says as he makes his way to the ladder.

“What is it, little one?”

“How long would you have waited?”

He avoids her eyes. “I don't know what you mean.”

“If the others hadn't come along. What would you have let them do? To teach me a lesson?”

“I wouldn't…” He gulps. “I wouldn't have let them hurt you. Not…I was about to stop them.”

“Did you hire them?” she asks, and he flushes with anger.

“No. I know you think me a monster, but that…” He shakes his head. “You think so little of me. I suppose that's my fault.”

There was a time when she would have denied it. Now she just looks at him, and after a silence he descends the ladder.

 

It's still daylight when she wakes. No, not _still_ \- the pale light spilling through the ceiling is that of morning. True to his word, Cullen has left her dinner on the bedside table. And beside that, breakfast, the tea cooling in its little pot. She eats everything.

From the bridge she hears the sound of sparring. Idris is battling Cassandra, staff against sword and shield. His lean brown torso glistens with sweat but he's not bested: what he lacks in Cassandra’s strength he makes up for with a lithe grace, spinning and almost dancing around her, choosing carefully which blows to dodge and which to parry. Until he spies her, and a moment’s hesitation sees him sprawling in the dirt from a blow of the Seeker's shield.

Cassandra follows his line of sight, mutters something that might have been “distraction,” before helping the Inquisitor to his feet.

“He doesn't understand.”

Lilla shouldn't be surprised by Cole’s sudden appearances any more, but she starts in shock. “This is not a good time to sneak up on me,” she scolds him gently.

“Sorry,” he says mildly. “Love, safety, warmth, _ma’vhenan_ \- why would she choose the hurt? He took you to the sky.”

“I can't talk about that.” Her cheeks flame pink. Maker, is there anything he doesn't see?

“Can't talk. Too many layers, twisted and twined, love shouldn't hurt but his does, it burns and consumes and weakens. Nobody knows how he hurts, nobody but me. Screaming inside with old pain, hands always cold, my head, Oh Maker, make it stop, take it away. Only wanted to be free of it. If he wronged her then he wronged all of them, cut them down, the Maker’s will, these are my orders but the screams, the screams…”

“Stop!” she cries. “Cole, stop, I don't want to hear it. Please.”

The boy shakes his head as if emerging from a trance. “Don't want to hear it,” he murmurs. “The song. Only she keeps it quiet.”

 

Now she's recovered she insists that Cullen have his bed back. The cot is too small for his long, heavy frame, even if he didn't thrash about so in his sleep. And sure enough she hears him in the night, shouts and moans and finally a broken, pitiful weeping.

“Cullen.” His back is to her as she reaches the loft. “Are you awake?”

“Leave me,” he groans.

Wordlessly she climbs onto the mattress next to him and takes his tousled head into her lap.

“I think it's killing me.” His skin is hot and dry under her hand. “Some nights I wish I could just dash my brains out and let it be over with.”

She strokes his curls in small, soothing circles. “Let me help. I can't make it go away but I can make it less.”

“I can't ask you to do that. The risks…”

“Then don't ask me. Just trust me.” Resting her hands on his temples, she waits for him to meet her eyes and when he does, the pain there almost makes her weep with him. “Can you trust me, Cullen?”

He grasps her wrist weakly and nods. Lilla lets a soothing cold spread over his skin and sees his eyes close in relief. She can sense the inflammation pressing on his nerves - it can't be removed altogether without danger, but she can coax the dilated blood vessels back towards normal and deaden his perception of the pain a little. “How does it feel?” she asks after the healing light fades away. 

“Better,” he says wonderingly. “Will it last?”

“For now. Perhaps long enough to get you through this attack.”

“And you're alright?”

“Not possessed, if that's what you're asking.”

“No.” He strokes her wrist with his thumb. “I'm asking if you're alright. I've seen you drained, remember?”

“Cullen.” Smiling, she looks in his eyes. “It was easy. I could have done it for you a thousand times before now, if you'd let me.”

“I'm a fool, aren't I?”

“I won't argue.”

“I do love you,” he says hoarsely. “I don't show it in the right ways, I know.”

His dry lips brush hers, and somehow despite everything it's the easiest thing in the world to surrender to his touch, to let their mouths fall into the rhythm they know so well.

 _He needs me_ she thinks as she peels away her nightdress and lies down at his side. _This is where I belong._ The lines of his body are as familiar to her as her own, and when he takes his cock in hand and parts her thighs he slides into her willing heat like he's coming home.

“Don't be angry with me again, Lilla,” he whispers. “I can't stand to think of you angry with me.”

“Hush.” Wrapping her arms around his neck she moves to guide him deeper. “I'm here now.” There's no room for hurt and bitterness, not with him on top of her, inside and all around her, a part of her. 

 _He took you to the sky,_ a small voice reminds her. But she can't think of _him_ now, not now.

Cullen is letting his hunger take over, each needy thrust driving her into the mattress. Before long the cries break uncontrollably from her lips, the ecstasy and agony of being pinned and spread beneath his strong frame flooding her senses. All she can do is hold on as spurred by her cries he fucks into her harder and faster, sweat amplifying the noisy slap of their skin and the bed groaning beneath them.

“Fuck,” he gasps. “Just…” Kneeling up he throws her ankles over his shoulders, driving into her so deeply it's painful. She shifts her hips upward until she finds an angle where he hits her just right, bowing her back with each powerful thrust of his hips. “I just need…oh fuck…” His thumb presses to the apex of her sex and she wails, so high and loud they must hear it in the courtyard, on the ramparts, in Blackwall’s airy loft above the stables.

Cullen comes with a roar, dragging her over the edge too, whimpering and clawing at the sheets. _It burns and consumes and weakens._

 

“I want to ask you something,” Idris says. “As Inquisitor,” he adds when she looks at him warily. “We're leaving for the Western Approach soon and I don't think we can avoid a battle. I was wondering if you'd join the healers.”

From the courtyard she glances up at Cullen's tower.

“You don't need his permission," he says, following her gaze. "You're one of the best we have even without training. Solas doesn't give empty compliments, believe me.”

“Oh, I do,” she says, thinking of the stern elf. “I just don't know if I have the strength you need.”

“Then do what you can and rest when you need to,” he offers reasonably. “It's still better than not having you there at all.”

Still, she hesitates. “The veil will be thin. Solas said there could be danger.”

“From demons? I know, he told me. He also told me he doesn't believe you are in any real danger. He said your will is strong enough to resist temptation.”

Awkwardly, this makes her think of last night in Cullen's bed. Or a few days ago on the library floor, sighing with pleasure as she surrendered to the caresses of the Inquisitor’s tongue. “I'm not sure I have the best record on that front, lately.”

Idris does a brave job of hiding the hurt her words cause. “I am sorry,” he says. “I thought you were free, but I see now I took advantage.”

“No,” Lilla says vehemently. “Perhaps it was a moment of weakness on my part. But it wasn't a mistake. It was…” She blushes.

“Beautiful.” Maker, his eyes…it hardly seems fair, she thinks, for a man to have such pretty eyes. “That's what it was.”

“But now…”

“Cullen,” he says with the slightest edge of anger. “I know. But if you change your mind, I'll be here.”

“Don't wait for me, Idris. You deserve -”

“You,” he says simply. “And he does not. Life doesn't have to be fair though, does it?" He looks beseechingly at her. "Will you come to Adamant?”

“Yes,” she decides. Cullen will understand - he's not so undeserving as they all believe him to be.

Idris’s smile is radiant. “We will be lucky to have you with us,” he says. “I will tell the healers you ride with them, I'm sure there are things they can teach you along the way.”

“I’d like to help.” She can't help but grin back. “If Solas thinks it's safe.”

“As safe as a battle can be. But you'll be well back from all that.”

“You won't be.”

“No,” he says. “But I'll have good people at my back. And the best healers.”

She thinks of him, cold and unresponsive after Haven. “I hope you don't need healers.”

“Only…" He laughs strangely. "Never mind. I'm sorry for the short notice but you have a few days to prepare. Warm and light clothes if you have them. The sun is brutal, but it gets cold at night.”

“I'll see what I have. Idris…” Lilla puts a hand on his sleeve as he turns to go, and he looks at her hopefully.

“Lethallan?”

“I am sorry. For everything.”

Idris reaches out to touch her face, his hand instead resting on her shoulder. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Lilla.”


	9. Skyhold part III

“Absolutely not.”

She gapes at Cullen in disbelief. “It's a battle! People will be wounded. Our people.”

“And they will have healers,” he replies. “But not you. You will be here.”

“I'm no use here!”

“You're in no danger here.” It's the wrong time to ask him. He's gotten bad news about the supply lines. She should have waited longer after the scout left, given him time to calm down.

“Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds?” she says, appalled at her own temerity. “You're sending hundreds of people into danger. I could help.”

“Not you.” His jaw and fists are clenched tight. “I won't hear another word about it.”

“You said you trusted me, Cullen -”

“And I would not have said it if I knew you would use it against me like this!” He sweeps a bottle from his desk to smash on the floor, and she flinches. “This is what you do, you twist things, make everyone sorry for you so you get your own way!”

It's staggeringly unfair, enough to push her over the line into anger, to miss the way his eyes are becoming unfocused. “This isn't for me, it's for the Inquisition. And it’s not your decision to make.”

“For the Inquisition?” he sneers. “Or for the Inquisitor?”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous?” Cullen grabs her by the back of the neck. “You think I haven't seen the way he looks at you? What did you promise him?”

“Let me go,” she hisses, and instead he shakes her hard enough that her teeth rattle.

“You can't even deny it!” Cullen's voice grows louder. “To think I thought you were any different, when you're the same worthless whore she was. Did you fuck him yet, or is that for later, when I'm out of the way? Did you let him touch you?”

Looking back later, she can't understand what makes her say what she's about to say. Rage, fear, adrenaline, frustration, all converge into a strange, icy calm. It's anger that makes her turn to cruelty.

“ _Let_ him touch me?” she says quietly. “I _asked_ him to. I'd have begged him if that's what it took. Anything to get rid of the feeling of you all over me.”

It happens fast and slow. His lip curls with rage and she braces herself for a blow, but instead he shoves her hard enough to send her flying against the desk. She hears the crack before she feels it, already on the ground when the pain shoots up her arm like fire.

“You -” Cullen's face is white with shock and hers feels like it must look the same. “Are you alright?”

All she can do is shake her head, tight-lipped with pain. Cullen begins to pace.

“I didn't mean to…Maker, why would you say those things when I was - _fuck.”_ He stares at the way she cradles her arm. “Is it broken?”

When she finds her voice it's tight and unnatural. “Yes.”

“But you can heal it, can't you?”

She's in too much pain to appreciate the irony. “Not like this. It needs to be set straight.” Beneath the skin she can sense the misalignment, the two fractured ends not quite meeting. “I have to go to the infirmary.”

“Is that necessary? I could hold it for you -”

_“Don't touch me.”_

Cullen reels back at the steel in her voice. “Lilla, you must know I didn't mean to do this. You shouldn't have -”

“No.” Awkwardly with one arm, she struggles up from the floor. “I didn't make this happen. Lyrium didn't make this happen.” Her head swims as she straightens and for a moment she's not sure if she might faint, or vomit. “I'm getting help,” she says raggedly, “and you should too.”

“Just wait a moment,” he protests, “we should talk about this -”

When he reaches for her arm the barrier springs up without warning, surprising her as much as it does him. He staggers back, automatically reaching for his magic-stilling powers, and Lilla sees the moment he realises they're beyond his reach - the lyrium is too long out of his system, and his eyes widen in panic.

“Just let me go,” she says, and there's an echo in her mind of years ago, the Kirkwall Circle erupting in chaos around them as she begged for her freedom. “It's past time.”

 

“I fell.”

The healer doesn't look up as she works to stabilise the bone. “You must have fallen hard.”

“Yes,” she says lamely. “I tripped.”

“Well let me suggest that in the future you steer well clear of whatever it was that you tripped on.” The older woman finally meets her eyes, mouth set in a firm line. “Do you think you can do that?”

“I’ll do my best.”

There’s an ache as the bone begins to knit. “Drink this,” the healer says, handing her an elfroot potion. “It won’t need a sling, but nothing strenuous in the next few days. Swordplay, heavy lifting. I wouldn’t, for example, sleep in a room with a ladder.”

“I understand,” Lilla says, and she does. There’ll be no hiding this.

It’s hard to hold herself naturally as she crosses the courtyard when the memory of the pain is still fresh in her mind, but she can at least keep her head up. That is, until a noble brushes her on the way past and she visibly flinches, causing heads to turn in curiosity. Fighting the urge to go and hide in the library, she presses on towards the Inquisitor’s quarters.

“Come in!” she hears when she knocks tentatively. Idris is leaning over his desk, poring over old maps of Adamant Fortress, and his delighted smile on seeing her quickly fades.

“What’s wrong? You look like you’re about to fall over.” He steers her to the lounge and crouches to look in her face. “Did something happen with Cullen?”

She told herself she wasn’t going to be ashamed, but that it should be so obvious…”I had to tell you before you heard from someone else.”

“What is it?” He searches her with his eyes - the bruises on her neck and shoulder aren’t visible yet, thank the Maker, and with luck the elfroot will keep them from showing. “It was him, wasn’t it? I should have known this would happen. I should have gone with you.”

“I’m fine,” she tells him, even though her hands won’t stop shaking. “I went to the infirmary.”

“What did he do?” His voice is low and dangerous, and she begins to wish she had brought someone with her, someone to keep him from doing anything rash.

“We fought. My...arm. It broke.”

 _“Fenedhis lasa._ I’ll kill him.” Gentle, funny Idris is gone - in that moment he’s a predator roused to anger, the fury he unleashed on the bandits now directed towards the Commander. He stands and stalks across the room to where his staff lies.

“Please don’t be angry,” she whispers.

“I’m not angry with you, _lethallan.”_

“I know, but I can’t - please, I can’t take it right now. When you talk like that, it makes me afraid of you.”

Idris stops in his tracks. _“Vhenan,”_ he says. “I would never hurt you. Never.”

“I don’t want anyone hurt,” she begs. “Please, Idris. There are things you don’t know about.”

He drops the staff and takes a deep breath. “Then tell me, Lilla.”

“I can’t. It’s not for me to tell.”

Idris comes to sit by her, taking her hands in his. “Then who? Cullen?”

“If you promise - “

“I won’t hurt him, _vhenan._ I’m sorry I frightened you.” He presses a gentle kiss to her temple. “Will you stay here? You can have the bed.”

“I can’t take your bed,” she protests, and he laughs gently.

“You won’t be. I sleep on the floor.” He indicates a pile of blankets by the hearth. “So Dalish, I know. I can’t get used to these _shemlen_ mattresses.”

Her laugh becomes a hiccupping sob. “I’m sorry, I’m a wreck.”

“Shh.” Idris draws her head on to his shoulder. “The last few days haven’t been kind to you. Will you sleep? Or rest, at least. I will fix this, I promise.”

“Don’t let things fall apart because of me.”

“Is that what you’re afraid of? Don’t be. I won’t make any decisions until I hear what he has to say.”

She feels sick as she remembers her words to Cullen. “He knows about us.”

“Good,” Idris says. “Then we know where we stand.” Kneeling, he stoops to unlace her boots.

“You don’t have to do that. The healer said - “

“I don’t care what the healer said,” he says as he tugs one boot free. “I want to do this for you.” Putting both boots to one side, he stands and offers her a hand. “Now rest,” he says, pulling the sheets aside so she can slide wearily beneath them. “I’ll be back soon.”

She sleeps.

 

It’s dark outside when she hears the door close and light footsteps on the stairs.

“Idris?” she calls.

“It’s me.” With a wave of his hand, he sets torches blazing around the room. “Did I wake you?”

“No.”

“How is your arm?” He comes to sit cross-legged on the end of the bed.

“Fine. It aches a little.” She sits up, shifting to put a pillow behind her back. “What’s happening?”

“I talked to Cullen,” he says. “Cassandra was present for some of it. He told me about the lyrium...I wish someone had let me know earlier.”

“It wasn’t my secret to tell,” she says guiltily.

“I know, _lethallan._ I don’t blame you. We all knew there was something wrong, I just wonder if perhaps we had been able to offer more help none of this…” His shoulders slump. “We looked the other way for too long.”

“Is it too late to help him?”

“He offered to resign. It would be madness, this close to the siege. Then he said he should be taking it again…” Idris shakes his head. “I can hardly tell if he offers these things to aid the Inquisition, or punish himself. I think both.”

“So he’s to stay off it.”

“He is, but not in the way he’s been doing. Not trying to fight through without the full backing of the Inquisition, hiding things from the person he asked to watch out for him...Cassandra doesn’t know if she’s angrier at him or herself. And he told me about Kinloch Hold. About Kirkwall. Lilla…” His dark eyes are soft with pain. “He told me about you.”

“Oh.” She swings her legs off the side of the bed. He’ll want her to leave now. He knows how she sold herself to Cullen to stay free of the Circle, how she came here as much to be his whore as his scribe. “I’m sorry I let you believe...I’ll go. You won’t have to see me again.”

“Lilla.” He moves to block her way, careful not to lay his hands on her. “Nothing that happened was your fault. Cullen told me all of it. He said he didn’t think of it that way at the time, but he forced you. You were just trying to survive and he took advantage of that. Of you.”

“Please,” she whispers, avoiding his eyes. “Just let me go.”

Idris steps away from the top of the stairwell. “I won’t stop you from leaving. But I’m begging you not to. Not until you know that you are blameless. That I don’t think any less of you for what you went through.”

“You don’t understand. It wasn’t all...not everything was forced. I could have left, after the rebellion. I didn’t have to come with him to Haven. I _chose_ this. Over and over, I chose it.”

“I don’t care,” he says vehemently. “You were practically a child when it began, who can blame you for choosing to stay with the only protection you knew? Am I supposed to think less of you because you loved him?”

“Yes!” she wails. “Because I stayed, and everything he did I _let_ him do, and I went back to him after you...after…”

He catches her as she crumples, gently lowering them both to the ground. _“Vhenan,”_ he says softly, rocking her in his arms as she sobs. _“Ma’vhenan,_ it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.”

“What will he do now? He has no one.”

“He has the Inquisition. We won’t abandon him, not when he wants to make amends.”

“He must hate me.”

“Nobody could hate you, _emma lath._ If he hates anyone now, it’s himself. But that’s not your burden to bear any more. We’ll see him through this.” His arms tighten around her. “And you.”

 

When she next wakes it’s to a low ray of sunshine slanting across the bed. Muddled, it takes her a moment to place the Inquisitor’s quarters, and then with the dull ache in her arm she remembers yesterday. Idris said everything would be alright. The shirt she’s wearing is one of his and it smells reassuringly like him, of forests and woodsmoke and leather.

Rolling over she sees that sure enough he's sprawled on the floor in a tangle of blankets. As beautiful in sleep as awake, with his usually lively face at peace and his smooth olive skin glowing in the morning sun.

Carefully, she rises and pads over to where he sleeps, settling down on her knees beside him. She’d be content just to watch the slow rise and fall of his chest and the curve of his mouth, those soft pink lips that coaxed such feelings from her body. It feels a lifetime ago when those brown shoulders were beneath her legs and that raven hair fell in his eyes as he held her gaze…

His eyes flicker open and a lazy smile spreads over his face. “Lilla?”

“Shh.” Slowly, she peels his shirt away from her body until she’s kneeling bare to the morning light.

“You don’t have to - “

“I know. I want to.” Her hand looks so pale as she traces a path up his chest, bending to kiss his smooth, sun-warmed skin. He sighs at her touch, then gasps faintly as she laves her tongue over one small, dark nipple. Her hands glide easily over his hairless skin, feeling the ripple of muscles in his ticklish belly, the wiry strength in his arms and shoulders. When she glances up there’s something akin to reverence in his dark gaze.

“Can I touch you?”

She nods, and he slides down until her face is closer to his, gently positioning her above him. It’s almost chaste for a while as they explore each other with their hands, softly stroking and squeezing. Then a shift in position causes his leg to slide between hers, and her moan is quickly captured by his mouth, tongue delving languidly between her parted lips.

Her hand dips beneath the sheets and it’s his turn to moan when she traces the shape of his stiffening length through his sleeping trousers. He meets her eyes, perhaps searching for a hint of reluctance, but he finds none - not in her sleepy smile, nor the deft fingers that tug at his laces and finally wrap around his smooth, hard shaft.

 _“Fenedhis,”_ he hisses as she thumbs the swollen head of his cock, pushing back the foreskin. His head falls back onto the blankets. “Oh, Lilla.” When she bends to take him into her mouth he cries out almost in agony. _“Sathan,”_ he gasps, “please…”

She takes her lips away, still stroking the pulsing length with her hand. “What do you need?”

 _“Garas, aman ara’mis.”_ His fingers tangle in her red hair. “I want to be inside you.” A soft sound of need escapes the back of her throat, and he grins. “Would you like that too, _vhenan?”_

She answers with a slow crawl up his chest, her legs easily straddling his narrow hips. When she plants her hands flat on either side of his shoulders she can feel the bump of his cock against her sex, and she rolls her hips to let him slide between her folds, each tiny drag of flesh on heated flesh making her breath hitch.

“Touch me,” she whispers, and one hand closes over her breast, the other dipping into the wetness between her thighs.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs as his finger slides inside her hot sheath, and laughing, she shakes her head.

“You are.”

Idris pushes himself up onto his elbows and takes her other breast into his mouth, drawing with lips and tongue as his fingers continue to stroke her. His mouth leaves her nipple with a lascivious pop. “Beautiful,” he says, staring up at her.

She’s nearly whining with need, afraid he will bring her to a finish before she can feel him inside her. “Idris, please.”

 _“Vhenan.”_ He sits up fully, pulling her hips flush against his. “Lean back,” he says hoarsely. “Let me see you.” His fingers trace her throat, her breasts, down her belly and thighs. Then he looks straight into her eyes as he slides, slow and smooth, into her waiting heat.

“Oh,” is all she can say. He feels so right inside her, pulsing gently at her walls, sheathed right up against the spot that makes her nerves sing. And when he moves, slowly at first, heat spreads through her body as much from seeing the rapt concentration on his face as the friction of their bodies sliding together. He watches where his cock vanishes inside her and emerges, glistening with her juices. She sees him admire the roll of her hips and the soft bounce of her breasts, the sweat beading in the hollow of her throat and her parted lips, and she feels beautiful.

 _“Ar lath ma,”_ he whispers and she answers, “I love you.” His giddy smile makes her laugh out loud.

“You’re shaking,” he says, and it’s true; she can feel her limbs shivering as the feeling builds and spreads inside of her. When her finish comes it’s like letting go of everything, falling forward onto his chest as she trembles and cries.

 _“Ar lath ma,”_ he says again as he rocks her against him, at last spilling inside her with a low, satisfied moan. He kisses her neck, her face, her shoulders. “You are loved.”

 

It’s a war meeting that has them finally crawling from the sheets. “Take that smile off your face,” she tells him. “Everyone will know what you’ve been doing.”

“I’ll think of war,” he says. “Or, wait: Stroud’s moustache. No, that makes me smile.”

“War is a suitable thing to think of, on the eve of war.” She tucks back a stray bit of hair and nods, satisfied, before he catches her hand and kisses the inside of her wrist.

“However did I manage to leave my rooms looking presentable, without you?”

Lilla smiles, tracing the dark lines of his vallaslin with her fingertips. “I’m going to the infirmary.”

Instantly he looks worried. “Your arm?”

“No, to help. And pester the healers to teach me things. Then I’m going to the library to pester Dorian.”

“Be careful pestering Dorian. Once he gets going, he’s hard to stop.”

“I don’t mind,” she laughs. “I have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Lilla…” he says, suddenly serious.

“What is it?”

“Cullen. He expressed a lot of regrets, yesterday. And I told him that if he meant it, he should say it to you. If you wanted to hear, that is.”

“Oh.” She bites her lip. “I’ll have to talk to him sooner or later, won’t I?”

“Only if you want to. If we put the best minds of the Inquisition onto it, I’m sure we could find a way for you to avoid each other forever.”

“That’s not the best use of the Inquisition’s resources, I think.” She sighs. “I’ll talk to him. Just…not alone. And not too public.”

“Do you think he’d try to hurt you?”

“I don’t know,” she says honestly. “I didn’t think it before. I’ve seen him get better, and get worse. And I think there are times when he can’t tell where he is or who he’s talking to, and he loses control. I don’t think he wants to hurt me…”

“But he still might.” Idris nods slowly. “We’ll work something out.”

 

Coming back from the infirmary she almost runs headlong into Cassandra, scowling as she strides towards the practice yard. The Seeker pauses, looking down at Lilla from her greater height.

“I wish to apologise,” she says abruptly. “I misjudged...the nature of your relationship. I made assumptions about your character that were unworthy.” A flicker of pain crosses her face. “I ...could have spared you additional suffering, if I had not been so blind.”

“I don’t…” Flustered, Lilla stares up at her. “It’s fine, really. You’re not to blame.”

“Everyone is to blame,” Cassandra declares, and carries on her way to hit something.

Dorian looks up from his book when she enters the library. “So the little bird has flown the nest, I hear? Well done you.” He smirks. “Next time somebody wishes to grill me about slavery in Tevinter -”

“I’m not here to talk about that,” she says, cutting him short before he can say something too offensive. “I want to learn.”

“Well, the library is a good place to start. What, precisely, do you want to learn?”

“I don’t know _precisely,”_ she answers. “But magic.”

“Ah!” Dorian’s eyes light up. “Well, magic is rather a _broad_ place to start, but let me see…”

An hour later she’s sitting by a stack of books as high as her shoulder, watching Dorian gesture expansively as he talks. They’re interrupted by the soft sound of a throat clearing.

“Excuse me.” Sister Nightingale emerges from the shadows. “A word, if I may.”

“If this is another blasted letter from my father - “ Dorian begins.

“Not you.” The spymaster turns her inscrutable gaze on Lilla. “If you would follow me upstairs…?”

Lilla’s heart sinks. She’s going to be sent away. Or ordered to go back to Cullen for the good of the Inquisition. Possibly killed to avoid a scandal. But when they arrive in the rookery, Leliana’s words take her by surprise.

“The Inquisition owes you an apology,” she says. “Or, more accurately, I owe you an apology.”

“Why…?”

“Very little goes on in Skyhold that we do not know about. The same was true of Haven.” Leliana blinks slowly, waiting for her message to sink in. “A blind eye was turned to some aspects of the Commander’s personal life. Certain matters were ignored, until they could be ignored no longer.”

Lilla isn’t sure how she’s supposed to respond, so she continues to stare at the Spymaster blankly. Leliana sighs.

“I knew the Hero of Ferelden, not long after she left the Circle.”

“Oh. What was she like?”

“She was very beautiful. And she could also be very cruel.” Leliana sits, gesturing for Lilla to join her. “I suppose life in the Circle fostered a certain talent for manipulation. And by the time Neria was grown, it had become an end in itself. She took delight in sowing doubt, playing people against each other. In another life, she might have been a valuable player at the Game. As it was, she left a trail of chaos behind her. And Cullen was caught up in that chaos.”

“I know some of this,” Lilla says. “It’s good to hear from someone else who knows her. I sometimes wondered, how much of it was…”

“His imagination?” Leliana shakes her head. “I don’t doubt that Uldred’s torture twisted his perceptions, but there was much about our dear Warden that was...unlikeable.”

She works up the courage to speak what’s on her mind. “Are you going to ask me to stay with him?”

“Stay? No.” Leliana drums her fingers gently on the tabletop. “The opposite, in fact.”

“So you’re asking me to leave.”

“Not the Inquisition,” the Spymaster says. “Just Cullen. For his sake, as much as yours. He has relied on your support - perhaps too much. It is time for him to stand on his own two feet.”

Lilla isn’t sure if she should be offended. “He needs someone - “

“He will have support. Not from one single person. Nothing that can become another obsession.” Leliana finally allows herself a tiny smile. “I think you may find other roles to play in the Inquisition - roles no less valuable.”

 

They meet in the garden. Cullen looks terrible - pale and haggard, his eyes red and tortured with guilt. When he sees Lilla he takes a step towards her, and she halts him with an upraised palm.

“Please,” she says. “That’s close enough.”

“I need…” Cullen clears his throat, glancing at the scouts that are too far away to hear, but near enough to intervene if it becomes necessary. “I have to apologise.”

“You didn’t mean to hurt me.”

“No.” He shakes his head vehemently. “I can’t let you make excuses for me.  I didn’t set out to, but in that moment I did mean to hurt you. If you had hit your head, instead of your arm…I may not have had full control of myself, but I was _me._ I hurt you.” His face twists in misery. “But I didn’t mean just that. I meant everything. Making you walk out of here alone. The letters. Dragging you here from Kirkwall, and keeping you from your family. What I did...it was rape. There’s no pretty way to say it. Not just the first time, but others.”

Cullen finally pauses and looks at her tear-stricken face.

“I will make it right, Lilla. I will spend forever making it up to you - I’ll make it official. Marry you, if that’s what you want.”

“Marry me?” she says disbelievingly.

“Anything.” For such a big man he looks so small, hunched in his coat with his hands clenched together, pleading. It breaks her heart to say what she must.

“I can’t, Cullen.” He looks at her in blank shock. “I’m afraid of you. My whole body...you move towards me and everything freezes.”

“It will pass,” he says in desperation. “I won’t hurt you again. I won’t touch you until you’re ready.”

“What if I’m never ready?” She sighs, digging the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. “It doesn’t matter, Cullen. There’s no point in what ifs. We aren’t good for each other.”

“You are the only good thing - “

“No. When you get through this, you will see, there’s so much good. You still have friends. You have family who haven’t heard from you in an age. And your work, Cullen, you do so much good. You’re needed.”

His voice breaks with misery. “I don’t know how to do this without you.”

“You can learn.”

“Is it him?” he asks. “The Inquisitor?”

“No,” she says honestly. “I am with him now, it’s true. But if I wasn’t, I’d be alone. I need to be free of you, Cullen, like you need to be free of lyrium. I can’t live every day not knowing if it’s safe to talk, or smile, or even be in the same room as you.”

“You were right.” He bows his head, utterly defeated. “I am a monster. I’ve ruined your life.”

“My life isn’t ruined,” she insists, “and neither is yours. You will survive this, and you will find peace, and happiness. Just not with me.”

Cautiously, she approaches him, and when she reaches for him this time it’s he who flinches. It’s not easy to hug him, as tall and fur-covered as he is, but she reaches her arms around his waist as well as she can and after a moment’s hesitation she feels his arms encircle her.

“Be happy without me,” he murmurs. “If anyone deserves peace, it’s you.”


	10. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff alert

Lilla wakes on the floor in nothing but a tangle of sheets. Idris’s arm is heavy on her bare back and one of his legs is slung casually over hers.  It wasn't a dream, then: he's back from Halamshiral, and they spent last night making up for all the lost nights since he's been gone. 

She stretches experimentally, hearing him grumble. 

_ “Vhenan. _ Why are you awake?” 

“Did you think you could wear me out that easily?” 

There's a groan and a thrashing of limbs, and he pulls her to his chest. “I haven't begun to wear you out.” His lips trail down the back of her neck, while his hands cup her breasts. “I missed you.”

“Then don't leave me behind next time.”

Idris puts his chin on her shoulder. “Perhaps I won't.”

“What?” She twists around to see if he's joking, but his expression is thoughtful. 

“We can always use a healer in the field. You could practice your barriers and elemental spells on something other than the Chargers -” 

“Bull told me Krem  _ agreed _ to test that ice trap!” 

“And you'll be nicer to share a tent with than Varric.” He squeezes her appreciatively. “He's so hairy.”

“Stop!” she protests, wriggling in his arms. 

“You really want me to?” 

“No.” She twists around to kiss him.  _ “Ar lath ma.” _

Idris rolls them over so he's above her, his laughing eyes taking in every detail of her face. “I love you, too.”

 

The gardens are awash in warm sunshine, peaceful with the low buzz of insects and the murmur of conversation. Lilla bends to clear some errant clumps of grass from around the roots of a prophet's laurel. 

“Lilla!” she hears called in a melodious voice. “Over here!” 

Dorian beams to see her. “There's my favourite elf - don't tell the Inquisitor I said so. I was just busy trouncing our Commander at chess.”

“Think again,” Cullen says sheepishly. “Checkmate.”

Dorian stares at the board with growing dismay. “Why, you little - well, bother this. I'm off.” He stands and stretches, showing off his muscled shoulders a little more than is necessary. 

“I should be going too.” Cullen begins to clear the board, then pauses. “Unless,” he says hesitantly, “would you care for a game?” 

There's such a cautious hope in his voice, that even if she'd been inclined to say no she would have found herself taking Dorian’s empty seat. He looks much improved: his eyes are clear and bright and his skin has lost the clammy, sweaty look of a couple of months ago. 

“I hear you had some admirers at the ball,” she teases. 

Cullen shakes his head, blushing. “Oh, Maker. I can't even talk about it yet. They were like vultures waiting to pick over my bones.”

“Nobody caught your fancy, then?” 

“In Halamshiral? Hardly!” He glances up from the board. “You look well.”

“So do you.” She waits for him to make the first move, quickly countering it with one of her own. “How have you been feeling?” 

“Much better,” he admits. “The headaches trouble me less often. I still have nightmares, but the…intensity…is much less. My head feels clearer.”

“I'm happy for you.”

“And I for you.” Cullen hesitates, placing the piece he had been about to move back on the board. “It's strange for me to see you looking so at peace. I mean it's wonderful, but when I think you could have had such happiness all this time, if not for - “

“Cullen…”

He presses on. “If not for me. I did you a great injustice, Lilla, and I cannot apologise enough.”

“You can,” she says. Her hand covers his and he stares at it a moment before meeting her eyes, his brow creased with remorse. “I won't have you spending the rest of your life agonising over this. No more apologies - just be the man I know you can be. You've been there all along…you just got lost sometimes.”

“Too often,” he says softly. 

“Perhaps. But no more.”

“Maker willing.” He laughs. “You agreed to a game of chess, not an examination of my soul. Shall we get on with it?” 

“It's your move,” she reminds him with a smile. 

On the surface their conversation is lighter after that, although it seems every topic is fraught - enquiring after his family leads him to enquire about hers, and although she's glad to recount the letters she's exchanged with her sister, she sees the guilt in his hunched shoulders. 

“Mari’s better than she's ever been because of you,” she reminds him. “She hasn't had a fit since you sent the Circle healers to treat her. She can walk longer distances. She's not half-starved and constantly battling fevers. You gave her a life, Cullen.”

“And took away her sister.”

“I'm not gone,” she insists. “We stay in touch now, and when this is all over I can see her again.”

Cullen looks surprised. “You would go back to Kirkwall?” 

“Perhaps not to stay.” Her castle hovers for a second before gently nudging aside his knight. “But Idris’s clan are still in the Free Marches. We could visit Wycome too. If the world doesn't end, of course.”

He's looking at the pieces on the board, bemused. “You used to let me win, didn't you?” 

“Well…yes,” she laughs. “I wasn't sure you'd like losing.”

“I deserve that.” Cullen grimaces as he contemplates his next move. “You're certainly making up for it now.”

“You're not quitting on me are you, Commander Cullen?” 

“Oh no. Not on your life.” 

The shadows seem to leave him as they talk. He tells her of his own sister, the nephew he's never met. And any reservations she might have had about telling him about her expanded role in the Inquisition’s forces disappears with his smile of genuine approval. 

“The Inquisitor should have a healer with him,” he says. “The time they had to rush back from the Emerald Graves because Bull was half taken apart by a dragon…” He shakes his head. 

“Oh, he said it was worth it though.”

Their shared laughter makes heads turn in surprise. Cullen sits back in his chair, regarding her thoughtfully.

“Do you think things could have been normal between us, in another life?” 

“Perhaps,” she says with a smile. “If we met now, and not in Kirkwall, in the middle of all…” She shivers, and he reaches out to gently take her hand. She realises that it doesn't frighten her. 

“Let's begin now,” he says, letting go of her fingers to offer a handshake. “My name is Cullen. It's a pleasure to meet you.”

“Lilla.” Without hesitation, she accepts the clasp of his hand. “The pleasure is all mine.”

The silence that settles over them is comfortable, broken only by the far-off hum of bees. Finally Cullen looks up at her with a quirk of his lips. 

“Well, Lilla, I think you've won.”

She makes the final move. “I hope you won't hold it against me.”

“Absolutely not,” he says with conviction. “You've earned it.”

And they smile. 


End file.
